Media Rina Bansal

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary texts?

Alongside our television documentary we created a magazine article (double-page spread)

and a radio trail. This was to sell, as well as to advertise, our documentary to our target

audience; therefore we ensured that the theme was consistent with all three products.

There is no specific ethnicity, race or social class that our documentary is aimed at. In terms

of age, our documentary is aimed at 12-13 years and over as that is the usual starting age

where underage binge drinking progresses. The documentary is aimed for both males and

females.

The aim of this documentary is toengage and inform our target audience of the causes and

effects of underage binge drinking, as well as underage teenager’s knowledge of the

substance, compared to adult’s knowledge. By doing this, we hope to make the audience

aware of how serious this topic is, and how it has not been fully acknowledged in the world.

Documentary:

We had decided to broadcast our documentary for ‘Channel 4’. This is because they

target different groups of social class, gender, ethnicity, religion and age. As well as

this, they are ‘sister channels’with other popular channels, therefore would be

advertised on a range of different channels and radio stations and magazines such

as: e4; 4seven; film4; kerrang; smash hits! And many more. These link the ancillary

texts to the documentary.

Radio Trail:

Within the radio trail, we used audio extracts from the documentary, such as the student’s

thoughts and opinions on underage binge drinking, as well as important facts from experts.

The background music used in the documentary has a similar beat to the background music

used in the radio trail. These particular aspects are recognisable to the audience. The

narrator used in the documentary however, is different to the narrator used in the radio

trail. We had done this as we wanted the radio trail to sound more formaland slightly

enthusiastic for the listeners; also sounding more educated and professional about the

topic, hoping to attract an older target audience as well as a younger target audience (i.e.

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the parents of teenagers etc.) Whereas the narrator used in the documentary is aimed

towards the younger audience (the teenagers). However still remaining a serious tone to the

subject. I think that our radio trail supports and advertises our documentary well as the

extracts used are powerful, yet don’t give too much information away to the insight of

what our documentary is about.

We had decided to produce our radio trail for ‘BBC Radio One’ as they attract the wide

variety of young listeners, in which are our target audience for our documentary: “RAJAR

figures show an average audience of 6.69 million in the three months to December and an

increase of almost a quarter of a million 15-24-year-olds.”1Therefore we made our radio

trail appealing by using an enthusiastic, formal narrator; upbeat background music which

matches the documentary music and powerful audio extracts from the documentary.

Magazine Article:

We used still images from the documentary in our magazine so that they link well together.

The main image was used from our title scene in our documentary of the alcohol bottles in a

line outside a pub- this I thought portrayed the documentary well as it supported the

underage drinking topic. The second still shot was from a student interview, guessing the

amount of units in a ‘Smirnoff’ alcohol bottle. These images both link to the documentary as

they will definitely be seen and recognised by the audience. We also used 2 quotes, from

the documentary, in the article as I thought they were strong and effective. The quotes

were also used in the radio trail therefore both ancillary texts link to the documentary.

However, the magazine article did not promote the documentary as effectively as the radio

trail as it did not stand out as much to the audience.

Furthermore, we produced our magazine article for ‘More’ magazine, which is a magazine

aimed at older teenage women (age ranging from 15-late 20’s) however having a small

section for males. As woman are the dominant readers of ‘More’ magazine, this reduces our

chances of advertising our documentary to male teenagers. This is an improvement I would

make; I would produce our magazine article for a magazine that would be purchased by men

as well as women, such as the ‘Radio Times’.

1 Quote from BBC Radio One website: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/media/news/a455120/nick-grimshaw-bbc-

radio-1-breakfast-show-listening-figures-revealed.html

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Overall, I think that the television documentary had worked particularly well with the

ancillary texts. I think there could have been some minor improvements by doing more

research and planning, but overall both the ancillary texts linked well with the documentary

through utilizing audio extracts or images. The radio trail did appeal to the audience more

than the magazine article; as the radio trail consisted of similar, upbeat background music

and audio extracts from the documentary, however challenging the conventions by using a

different narrator for the voiceover. Whereas the magazine article links to the documentary

by inserting quotes and using still shot images. By incorporating these aspects, it makes the

combination of the three products very effective.