Factual and Reality Television Trends

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Public and Popular: British andSwedish Audience Trends in Factualand Reality Television

Annette Hill, Lennart Weibull & Åsa Nilsson

The research in this article examines audience responses to a range of factual and reality

genres. It takes as a starting point that television audiences do not experience news or

documentary or reality TV in isolation but as part of a range of factual and reality

programmes. Factual and reality programming includes a broad understanding of non-

fictional programming on broadcast television, satellite, cable and digital television.

The breakdown of factual and reality programming into specific genres includes news,

current affairs, documentary, and reality programmes, with further sub genres applied

within each of these categories. This article critically examines genre evaluation. The

quantitative research in this article is based on two national representative surveys con-ducted in Britain and Sweden. In both Britain and Sweden, programme makers have

moved towards a reliance on popular factual genres. In Britain this is across all channels,

and in Sweden this is mainly concentrated on commercial channels. Whilst there is still a

commitment to news, there is an increasing use of hybrid genres in an attempt to popu-

larise factual output. The impact of this changing generic environment on audiences is

that in both countries viewers have reacted by drawing a line between traditional and

contemporary factual genres. It is precisely because of the redrawing of the factual map

that viewers rely on traditional ways of evaluating genres as public and informative, or

popular and entertaining. The data provides evidence that contributes to existing

debate on television genre, public service broadcasting, and media literacy skills. The

central argument in this article is that genre evaluation is connected with wider socio-

cultural discourses on public service broadcasting and popular culture, and that these

are common social and cultural values that are shared by national audiences in two

Northern European countries.

Keywords: Television; Audiences; Genre; Factual Television, Reality TV; Public Service

Broadcasting; Popular Culture; Genre Evaluation

Cultural Trends

Vol. 16, No. 1, March 2007, pp. 17–41

Correspondence to: Annette Hill, Professor of Media, School Research Director, University of Westminster,

Northwick Park Campus, Watford Road, Middlesex, HA1 3TP, UK. Email: [email protected]


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Introduction

There is a great range of non-fiction television programmes available to audiences,

from news to lifestyle to reality gameshows. How do viewers make sense of an increas-

ing complex, hybridised, and ever changing factual environment? Viewers do notexperience news or documentary or reality television in isolation but as part of factual-

ity as a whole. Viewers use genre evaluation as a tool for understanding a wide range of

factual content. Television viewing trends for contemporary news, documentary and

reality programming show a genre map divided according to pre-existing categories

associated with public knowledge and popular culture. This way of categorizing and

valuing factual and reality programmes highlights the importance of social and

generic discourses on television, and pre-existing attitudes towards British and

Swedish television contexts and genres. The concepts of public service and commercial

broadcasting frame attitudes towards television programmes.

Factual and reality programming includes a broad understanding of non-fictionalprogramming on broadcast television, satellite, cable and digital television. The break-

down of factual and reality programming into specific genres includes news, current

affairs, documentary and reality programmes, with further sub-genres applied within

each of these categories.

. News, for example, is a category that encompasses regional, national and rolling

news programmes. The main news programmes are often flagship productions,

providing the main source of public information.

. Current affairs and investigations is a broad category that encompasses both long

form journalism, political debate, consumer based stories and investigative journalism.

. Documentary is a category made up of different documentary modes (Nichols,

2001). Selected documentary modes included specialist documentaries, observa-

tional documentaries and general documentaries, which can either be a strand,

or stand alone documentaries on any number of topics.

. Reality TV is a catch all category for a variety of different one off programmes, series

and formats that follow real people and their everyday or out of the ordinary experi-

ences. In previous research, Hill (2005) outlined four sub-categories: infotainment,

often about crime or emergency services; docusoaps, often about institutions orgroups of people; lifestyle, often about making over someone’s home or personal

appearance; and reality gameshows, often about an experiment with a group of

people, or situation. We would now add life experiment programmes to this

group. Whilst popular factual is located in border territory between factual and

other non-fiction and fiction genres, it is nevertheless part of the story of contem-

porary factual television and needs to be included in any discussion of factual cate-

gories (see Kilborn, 2003).

Traditional factual genres, in particular news and current affairs, have been the subject

of academic research that is connected to the ‘public knowledge project’ (Corner, 1998).This present article presents the findings of a research project ‘Television Audiences and

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Factual and Reality Programming’,1 which is concerned with the power of public service

factual genres to inform and potentially influence the viewer. Traditional factual genres

can inform viewers about political, economic and social issues, and can help in their

development as citizens who take part in democratic processes. There is a common

assumption that factual television is the domain of public service broadcasters.However, as public service broadcasters have changed to respond to more commercial

television markets, they have looked to balance their information and educational pro-

gramming with more entertainment led output. Ellis characterizes this as ‘popular

public service’ (2000, p. 32). The term usefully sums up a move within public service

broadcasting to appeal to popular audiences. For example, the rise of popular factual

programming on the BBC during the 1990s is indicative of its popular public service

agenda. Research into popular factual genres is connected to the continuing develop-

ment of the public knowledge project in Britain and Sweden.

A series of research questions relating to genre, actuality, learning and fairness wereused to frame the project as a whole. The focus of this article is on findings relating to

the following research questions: how do adult viewers evaluate factual and reality tele-

vision genres in Britain and Sweden? What are viewing preferences for factual and

reality programming? How do viewers value different genres? How do viewers map

factual and reality programmes across information and entertainment axes?

The quantitative research in this article is based on two national representative

surveys conducted in Britain and Sweden. The data provides evidence that contributes

to existing debate on media literacy skills, and the ways in which viewers understand

and critically engage with media content. The central argument in this article is that

genre evaluation is connected with wider socio-cultural discourses on public serviceand popular culture, and that these are common values that are shared by national

audiences in two Northern European countries.

This article is set out in six sections, which consider its research methods; British

and Swedish television; programme categories; viewing trends; public value and per-

sonal interest; information/entertainment, and closes with a conclusion.

Part 1: Research Methods

The research methods included an analysis of media content, and a scheduling andratings analysis of a range of factual and reality programmes. The research benefited

from the advice of the BBC, BFI, ITV, Channel 4, Five and BSkyB in Britain; in

Sweden a series of interviews were conducted with a range of media professionals

working within Sveriges Television (SVT), TV4 and Kanal 5. This background analysis

formed the basis for qualitative and quantitative audience research, and for the pur-

poses of this article only the quantitative research is referred to (see Hill, in press).

The British survey contained a representative sample of 4,500 people, conducted

during November 2003, in association with Ipsos RSL. The survey contained one

open question, and 17 closed questions and was sent to a sample of 4,500 people

aged 16–65þ. The response rate was 95 per cent, and the high rate is because thisis the television industry sample for the Broadcasters Audience Research Board

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(BARB). The Swedish survey was conducted with a random sample of 2,000 people.

The sample included people aged 16–80 living in Sweden, including foreign citizens.

The survey was conducted in co-operation with the SOM Institute, Göteborg Univer-

sity, and carried out by Kinnmark Information AB. The survey contained two open

ended questions, and 37 closed questions, mainly of multi-item type, includingvarious questions related to demographic variables. Mail questionnaires were collected

from 4 February to 25 April 2005. The response rate was 51 per cent (with a natural

sample loss of 146 respondents). In comparison, the response rate for a similar type of

study, the national SOM survey 2004, was 65 per cent. Detailed analyses of comparable

questions in both surveys show a very high similarity, although there were some minor

differences in scaling. Also controls on background variables like gender and age indi-

cate that the relatively lower response rate does not seem to imply lower quality of

data. The quantitative data for both surveys was produced as SPSS files, and analysed

using descriptive statistics, multi-variate analysis and factor analysis.

Part 2: British and Swedish Television

This article takes as a starting point the concept of factuality as defined as ‘factual and

reality experiences, imagination, values, that provide settings within which media

institutions operate, shaping the character of factual and reality television processes

and viewing practices’ (adapted from Corner & Pels, 2003, p. 3). This section

briefly addresses the context to the reception of factual and reality programmes,

considering the ways categorization and scheduling impacts on viewer responses.

Britain

The British broadcasting landscape was dominated by a dual system of public

service and commercial broadcasting for 30 years from the 1950s to the 1980s.

The BBC and ITV offered a combination of information and entertainment based

programming, with an emphasis at the BBC on public service genres, and at ITV

on more popular genres. Both channels were associated with strong news provision,

and had flagship news and current affairs, and documentary series. The arrival of

Channel 4, a public service commercial channel, in the 1980s opened up the broad-casting environment, and in the 1990s the introduction of satellite/cable television,and a fifth commercial channel, Channel 5, established multi-channel television in

Britain. In 2006, over half of the British population have access to multi-channel

television, and over a third contribute to the multi-channel audience, rivalling

the market share for BBC and ITV.

The 1992 Broadcasting Act was crucial to the changes in the British broadcasting

context. The Act opened up competition from independent producers, and placed

pressure on the BBC to deliver cheaper programming. It also encouraged a more com-

petitive environment, a move the Conservative government had been pushing during

the 1980s, and that ensured that the BBC began to re-orientate itself as a more popularservice. It is no co-incidence that the BBC was the major developer of popular factual

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The Swedish media analyst Bengt Nordstrom points out that Swedish Television,

despite competition from the commercial channels, has a strong position when it

comes to audience attitudes to traditional cultural and factual genres, but has a

weaker position when it comes to younger viewers attitudes towards entertainment

based genres (2000, pp. 241– 243). He argues ‘for the Swedish TV market andviewer one could say that the altogether strongest side of public service television is

to act as a guarantor and as a stimulator for a strong and qualitative TV programming

range as a whole (p. 254). It is the case that public service organizations have a

higher trust rating than commercial channels, and this is both as consequence of

trust in the quality of public service broadcasting programmes, and also the associa-

tion of factual genres such as news or documentary with public service broadcasting.

However, Hadenius and Weibull suggest ‘one risk lies in that we in Sweden will get a

sharper divide between “elite media” and “popular media” in the same way as in

many other countries. The former turns to a knowledgeable few, while the latterturns to the broad audience with content where the emphasis is on entertainment’

(2003, p. 350).

In a report from the Broadcasting Commission (Svenskt TV-utbnd 2003, 2004),

the relationship between Swedish and foreign programming, and factual genres

was highlighted: 75 per cent of the programming of SVT and almost half of TV4’s pro-

grammes are produced in Sweden. In comparison, about two thirds of TV3 and Kanal

5’s programming consists of American programmes. Factual programmes and enter-

tainment programmes are to a large part Swedish . . . and reality TV game shows are

the ‘most Swedish’ in Swedish TV (2004, p. 86). The Broadcasting Commission report

details the number of hours allocated to particular genres. Selecting the factual andreality genres reveals a sharp divide between news and documentary on SVT, and

reality programming on commercial channels.

In the early 1990s, SVT gradually met competition from new television channels and

lost its dominant position among Swedish television viewers, especially since TV4 went

terrestrial in 1992. In 1998 the daily reach of the two SVT channels was less than 60 per

cent of the population and its audience share less than 50 per cent, whereas the

corresponding figures for TV4 were roughly 50 and 30 per cent, respectively. In 2005

the SVT channels further declined to a daily reach of 53 per cent and an audience

share of 40 per cent, but also TV4 had lost audience and a reach of 40 per cent andan audience share of 23 per cent. The two runners-up were TV3 and, especially,

Kanal 5, the two commercial channels, who had increased their audiences as a conse-

quence of an expanding satellite penetration, which in 2005 had a audience share of

about 9 per cent each (Hadenius & Weibull, 2004, p. 208ff.).

The competition between public and commercial meant an increased interest in

new programme formats. In 2000 the position of traditional soaps was weakened

among audiences. In that situation the channels started to try so called reality close

fiction or ‘reality TV’. Expedition Robinson (1997) was one of the first attempts in

Sweden. The series created an intense debate of the role of public service broadcasting.

However, the success of the series contributed to a literal explosion of the genre, whichmeant that every channel had to profile themselves with a docusoap (Hadenius &

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Weibull, 2004, p. 430). This comment is also echoed by the Broadcasting Commission:

‘in only one aspect there is a homogenous trend for the commercial channels: a heavily

increased offering of Swedish reality entertainment’ (Svenskt TV-utbnd 2003, 2004,

p. 87).

A brief scheduling analysis of factual and reality programmes during the autumn of 2004 indicates a narrow primetime schedule, where primarily news was stripped on

SVT at the same time as docusoaps were stripped on commercial channels. One of

the reasons for a narrow primetime schedule is that small budgets for Swedish

made programmes mean resources and slots are condensed into a few flagship

factual and reality series. The pressure for these programmes to perform means

there is a risk channels over rely on more of the same. As one media professional

explained:

The difference between the UK and Sweden is partly to do with tradition, and

culture, and very much to do with money. Money plays such a major part in con-densing the schedule, squeezing out part of the spectrum of programming. SVT ismoving to create a middle ground. We tend to be top heavy, with highbrow pro-gramming, and that is a problem because we are supposed to be there for everyone.We need an understanding of how popular culture works and how that is reflected inour programming.2

The comparison between Britain and Sweden suggests on the one hand a similar

public service and commercial system, and on the other hand a different broadcasting

history. In Britain, the long-standing tradition of commercial television, with some

commitment to public service genres, shows an overall wide range of news and

current affairs, documentary and popular factual programmes on public servicebroadcasting and commercial channels. It is also the case that larger budgets, and a

greater willingness to produce a variety of factual and reality programmes and sche-

dule them during peaktime, means viewers have a wide choice of programmes on

offer. In Sweden, the relatively recent arrival of commercial television, and its lack

of commitment to public service genres, shows an overall narrow range of news,

current affairs and documentary on public service broadcasting channels, and a

large amount of popular factual programmes on commercial channels. Smaller

budgets, and less willingness to produce a range of programmes for peaktime sche-

dules, mean viewers have a limited choice of programmes, especially in the commer-cial channels (Asp, 2005, p. 64ff.).

Part 3: Programme Categories

As a result of selective genre, scheduling and ratings analysis for news and current

affairs, documentary and reality programmes in both countries, sub-genres were

chosen to represent the broadest range of programmes available to viewers during

peaktime, weekday television schedules for the five main public service and commer-

cial channels in Britain and Sweden. In Britain, 14 sub-genres were used, and inSweden 11 were used. The list of factual and reality categories and typical programme

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examples were not exhaustive. These categories were used in order to signal to respon-

dents that when answering questions they should consider a representative range of

programmes, categorized by sub-genre and typical programmes within these sub-

genres. The 10 sub-genres shown here indicate the categories, which were comparable

in both countries.

News (‘Nyheter’)e.g., BBC News or ITV’s News at Tene.g., Rapport, Nyheterna, TV3 Nyheter

Current affairs/documentaries (‘Samhällsprogram/dokumentärer’)e.g., Tonight With Trevor MacDonald or Panoramae.g., Dokument utifrån, enskilda dokumentärer

Investigative journalism (‘Undersökande journalistik’)e.g., Kenyon Confronts or House of Horrors

e.g., Uppdrag granskning, Kalla fakta, Insider

Political programmes (‘Politiska debattprogram’)e.g., Question Time or Jonathan Dimbleby e.g., Agenda, Debatt, Ekdal mot makten

Consumer programmes (‘Konsumentprogram’)e.g., Watchdog or Rogue Traderse.g., Plus, Kontroll, Motorjournalen

Nature programmes (‘Naturprogram’)e.g., Life of Mammals or Survival

e.g., Mitt i naturen, Farligt möte

Documentary series (‘Dokumentära serier’)e.g., Real Lives or Cutting Edgee.g., Djurpensionatet, Barnsjukhuset, Veterinärerna

Re-constructions (‘Rekonstruktioner’)e.g., 999 or Police, Camera, Action!e.g., Efterlyst, På liv och död

Lifestyle experiment programmes (‘Livsstilsexperiment’)e.g., Faking It or Wife Swap

e.g., Par på prov, Switched, Blind date

Lifestyle programmes (‘Livsstilsprogram’)e.g., Changing Rooms or House Doctore.g., Äntligen hemma, Solens mat, Roomservice, Fab 5, Gröna rum

Reality gameshows (‘Dokusåpor’)e.g., Big Brother or Pop Idole.g., Big Brother, Farmen, Riket.

The use of 10 categories from factual and reality programming signifies the range of

traditional and popular factual genres in both countries. It also shows the increase

in popular factual formats over the past decade. Some categories were excluded,such as arts documentary, as it was not a common genre in peaktime schedules in

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either country at the time of the surveys. Sports coverage was excluded as it was per-

ceived as a distinct category of television production, and not part of the factual and

reality stable of genres. Docudrama was also excluded as it was not common to peak-

time schedules at the time of the surveys, but has recently become far more popular

showing an interesting generic development with fact/fiction hybrids.The categories that did not work in both countries reveal interesting differences in

production contexts. For example, talkshows were not included in the British sample

because they are shown in the daytime, and therefore outside the remit of this project.

But, in Sweden, talkshows are a staple of peaktime television. In the British survey

more documentary categories were used, for example specialist documentaries such

as history, or observational documentary, which reflects the long history of documen-

tary television and its place in peaktime schedules, whereas in Sweden natural history

documentary and documentary series were the only categories used, reflecting the

absence of different kinds of documentary in peaktime schedules.Differences within sub-genres further highlight culturally specific examples of pro-

grammes. For example current affairs in Britain is associated with a combination of

topical documentary style reportage and investigative journalism. In Sweden the

two styles are associated with two sub-genres: topical documentaries and investigative

journalism. Thus although the communicative styles may be similar, the categoriza-

tion of current affairs suggests subtly different things to British and Swedish

viewers. In relation to nature programmes, the differences are more obvious. In

Britain, natural history means programmes about wildlife around the world, for

example Blue Planet . In Sweden, there are foreign wildlife documentaries, but

home grown programmes are more often about the Swedish natural environment.Re-construction programmes illustrate the impact of public service versus commercial

broadcasting in both countries. In Sweden, the main re-construction programme is

shown on the commercial channel TV3, a channel popular with younger audiences.

In Britain, there is a long tradition of re-construction programmes on the BBC and

also ITV, two public service and commercial channels with an older age profile.

British lifestyle programmes highlight the dominance of a particular sub-genre of life-

style, the makeover, whereas in Sweden lifestyle refers to a range of instructional and

makeover series. In each category there are subtle variations, and these variations

impact on genre expectations amongst viewers in both countries.A final point relates to home grown versus acquired programmes. The programme

examples were specifically chosen to represent British and Swedish content. However,

in Sweden the common use of foreign formats, in particular from America and Britain,

impacts on the programme categories, in particular reality gameshows, which in

Sweden are mainly of American origin, although some Swedish formats have been

developed, for example Farmen. Typical for Swedish television from the start has

been its interest to find foreign formats easy to adapt (Nordmark, 1999, p. 329). In

the 1950s and 1960s it was mostly British programmes; later the American market

was regarded as the most interesting. Some American talk shows and docusoaps are

even transmitted directly, e.g., David Letterman Show , which means that there is notonly a matter of category but also of acquired programming from abroad.

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Part 4: Viewing Trends

Viewing habits in Britain and Sweden are remarkably similar, with news, and other

traditional factual genres being the most watched, and popular factual genres the

least watched, in both countries. In Sweden, there is greater interest in a narrow range of factual programming such as news and current affairs. In Britain there is

greater interest in a broader range of factual programming as a whole. These

general patterns of viewing become more distinct when considering different kinds

of viewing habits. It is clear that in both countries there is a sharp distinction

between news and every other kind of factual or reality genre, with very high levels

of viewing for news and low viewing for all other programmes. Occasional viewers

in both countries show a wider spread of viewing habits across a broader range of

genres. This suggests viewers respond well to the daily news bulletin, and reserve

other factual and reality genres for occasional viewing during the week. The power

of scheduling is apparent as viewing trends map scheduling trends for most genres,with news stripped daily, and other genres usually shown once per week.

Figure 1 details the regular viewing habits of British and Swedish respondents.

There was a high percentage for people, on a regular basis, watching the news

(67 per cent in Britain, 88 per cent in Sweden), and a low percentage for reality game-

shows (12 per cent in Britain, 14 per cent in Sweden). If we compare the figures for

news in relation to daily rather than regular (a few times per week) viewers, there is

a marked cultural distinction. Swedish viewers were twice as likely to watch the

news on a daily basis than British viewers (66 per cent and 33 per cent respectively).

Swedish viewers seem to be far more committed to daily news bulletins than Britishviewers, despite the fact that in Britain there are more frequent and lengthier bulletins

in peaktime on public service broadcasting and commercial channels.

Figure 1 Regular Viewing of Factual and Reality TV in Britain and Sweden (Per Cent)

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All the other genres in Figure 1 scored low for regular viewers, with the exception of

natural history in Britain. The dominance of news becomes less distinct when

occasional viewers are taken into account. Figure 2 indicates a higher percentage of

occasional viewers for all genres, and shows that other factual and reality genres

attract occasional viewers. The pattern reveals a preference for news, current affairsand documentary over more popular factual genres. For example, both countries

showed a high preference for news (91 per cent Britain, 95 per cent Sweden) and

current affairs (58 per cent Britain, 61 per cent Sweden) and a low preference for

reality gameshows (27 per cent Britain, 29 per cent Sweden).

The reporting of viewing habits for popular genres, in particular reality gameshows,

is low compared to high ratings in both countries. This is partly explained by the per-

centage of older viewers who do not watch these programmes. It is also the case that

respondents under reported their viewing habits due to the lack of value they attach to

these populist reality series (see next section). Given the intense scheduling of somereality formats in Britain (e.g., Big Brother ), and many formats in Sweden, which

are stripped during weeknights, there is certainly a discrepancy between the scheduling

and ratings performance, and the reporting of viewing habits in both countries.

There are differences across the two countries in terms of occasional viewing prefer-

ences for genres. Overall these differences show British viewers like a wide range of

factual genres, whereas Swedish viewers prefer a narrower range. These genre preferences

are as much to do with the production context and scheduling of factual as taste in par-

ticular genres. For example, there was a marked preference for natural history pro-

grammes in Britain (75 per cent), which showed the tradition and long term

popularity of wildlife documentaries, such as Blue Planet (BBC), whereas there wasless preference for nature and environment programmes in Sweden (45 per cent).

Twice as many British viewers watched politics programmes, documentary series,

Figure 2 Occasional Viewing of Factual and Reality TV in Britain and Sweden (Per Cent)

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consumer programmes and re-constructions than Swedes. Why this is the case is partly

related to the predominance of these genres over the past decade in British schedules.3

Looking closer into the age and gender factors, which tend to be important when it

comes to lifestyle variations and cultural preferences, we find some interesting ten-

dencies (Tables 1 and 2). In terms of age we would expect that reality gameshows, life-style programmes and life experiments attract young people more than news and

current affairs, and vice versa for older adults. The expectation is confirmed for

both Sweden and Britain. In spite of the variation in level, the differences between

young and old are about the same. For example, news is regularly watched by

48 per cent of the youth and 81 per cent of the elderly in the Britain. The correspond-

ing figures for Sweden are 58 and 96 per cent, respectively, meaning an age gap of

about 35 percentage units in both countries. With regard to docusoaps/reality gameshows we find the same pattern. In Britain this genre is regularly watched by 37 per

cent of the youth and 2 per cent among the elderly, in Sweden by 37 per cent of the youth and 4 per cent of the elderly; the percentage difference also here is about

35 units. The pattern holds for most categories and the age factor seem to be of

more or less the same significance in both countries. What is striking here is that

the age profiles for reality TV indicate clear groups of non-viewers and viewers,

with older viewers likely to be what we might call ‘reality refusniks’.

Gender differences are generally smaller than those of age, but the results take an

expected form in that women produce somewhat higher figures than men when it

comes to reality gameshows and lifestyle programmes in both countries. However,

there are also variations between the countries. The most striking difference concerns

news, which women and men in Sweden watch to the same extent, whereas in Britainthere is a clear gender difference. Looking more closely into this result by controlling

for age, we find that this is partly explained by the fact that especially older women

watch less news in the Britain compared to older women in Sweden. In Britain

there is a gender divide with regard to the popularity of life experiment programmes,

popular since the early 2000s, and often coupled with existing series in lifestyle or

Table 1 Regular Viewing of Factual and Reality TV by Age, UK and Sweden (Per Cent)

UK Sweden

16– 24 65þ 16 –24 65 –80

News 48 81 58 96Nature programmes 22 44 7 33Documentaries 20 21 10 15Consumer programmes 20 27 6 12Reconstructions 22 19 10 6Lifestyle programmes 23 6 21 9Current affairs 7 18 12 30Docusoaps/reality game shows 37 2 37 4Politics programmes 4 23 4 16

Life experiment programmes 29 3 6 0No. of respondents 241 778 109 156

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reality genres. There isn’t such a gender divide in Sweden, where this format has only

recently been introduced, and only a small segment of the population watches this type

of programme. In general terms, the gender effect is somewhat stronger in the UK than

in Sweden.

Socio-economic status has traditionally been identified as an important factor in

audience research. In this analysis education has been used as an indicator of socio-

economic status, as other indicators are not applicable in both countries. The

general observation is that there are relatively few clear-cut differences between indi-

viduals with low (secondary school) medium (further education) and high (highereducation) levels of education (Table 3). Further, any existing patterns must be

Table 2 Regular Viewing of Factual and Reality TV by Gender, UK and Sweden (Per Cent)

UK Sweden

Men Women Men Women

News 71 60 88 88Nature programmes 39 34 16 13Documentaries 16 22 9 12Consumer programmes 19 19 9 6Reconstructions 13 17 7 7Lifestyle programmes 8 19 11 22Current affairs 12 13 20 22Docusoaps/reality game shows 6 17 10 17Politics programmes 14 10 9 7Life experiment programmes 6 16 2 2No. of respondents 1,991 2,327 436 497

Table 3 Regular Viewing of Factual and Reality TV by Education, UK and Sweden(Per Cent)

UK Sweden

Low Medium

low Medium

high High Low Medium

low Medium

high High

News 69 64 66 68 92 81 93 90Nature programmes 37 37 37 37 24 12 18 7Current affairs 22 21 21 17 10 14 12 8Consumer programmes 26 20 15 16 10 7 10 3Politics programmes 20 16 14 10 6 9 9 3Documentaries 17 12 15 14 15 21 16 15Reconstructions 15 12 14 12 18 19 30 21Docusoaps/reality

game shows14 12 12 11 12 19 11 8

Lifestyle programmes 12 9 12 14 10 6 10 6Life experiment

programmes12 13 13 10 92 81 93 90

No. of respondents 1,357 890 813 987 196 324 183 215

Comment: Education is strongly related to age.

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interpreted with great caution since education is highly correlated with age, which is

especially the case in Sweden. If programmes on nature at first sight seem to be more

popular amongst people with a low education level in Sweden, this is not the case in

the older population, which is more interested in these programmes in general. Con-

trolling for the age factor, the only genre that seems to be related to education level in asubstantial way in Sweden is reality gameshows, which are less popular among people

with higher educational levels than others. In the UK, the level of education seems

most decisive when it comes to watching politics programmes, a more popular

genre among people with higher levels of education, regardless of age. In the next

section we look at the social value of these genres in comparison with personal interest.

Part 5: Public Value and Personal Interest

One of the ways genres, such as news or documentary, can be judged by viewers is linkedto their perceived importance on television. If a genre is considered to have public value,

then it is important that it is shown on television, providing the audience with reliable

information and knowledge. There is an association of public value and social impor-

tance, and this is connected with wider socio-cultural discourses on quality television,

and the public knowledge project (Corner, 1998). Not surprisingly, the public value

of factual genres is closely associated with the value of public service television, which

has a formal duty to inform and educate viewers. The public value test also works as

a quality criterion, and viewers tend to associate news or documentary as public

service, duty genres and other non-fictional programmes, such as reality TV, as commer-

cial, entertainment genres. The public, or social, value of factual genres is therefore also ameans of understanding audience attitudes to factual genres on public service and com-

mercial channels. Research has shown the more entertaining a factual programme is the

less important it appears to viewers (Hill, 2005). Swedish studies also clearly show a

strong positive correlation between trust in a medium and its perceived content of

news and public affairs (Weibull, 2004; Westlund, 2006). However, there are other

ways of assessing the value of factual genres, for example the ‘watchability’ of a genre

may be something highly valued by viewers. For that reason we asked respondents

how important it was to them that different factual and reality genres were shown on

television, and compared their responses with frequency of viewing.Respondents consistently valued traditional factual genres more than popular

genres. For example, in Figure 3(a) there is a summary of the value of factual and

reality genres (i.e., how important respondents perceived it is that these genres are

shown on British/Swedish television). The examples of two extreme responses fornews and reality TV illustrates the high value accorded to a traditional public

service genre (over 80 per cent), and the low value accorded to a contemporary

popular genre (less than 5 per cent). In both countries, there were strong views on

the public value of news, and reflects the high status of the news genre in countries.

It is notable that traditional factual genres, such as current affairs or political pro-

grammes, have a relatively average value when the statistics for ‘very important’ areisolated. Documentary also has a low value rating when ‘very important’ is isolated.

30 A. Hill et al.


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Given that these genres are most associated with public service channels it raises issues

regarding public value of these genres. News is the one genre that stands apart as pub-

licly important to almost all viewers.

It is also notable that there is a higher value attached to other Swedish factual genres,

which may suggest Swedish viewers take factual genres more seriously than their

British counterparts. For example, more Swedish respondents claimed current

affairs was very important (57 per cent), than British respondents (26 per cent).This is perhaps connected to the association of current affairs in Sweden with SVT,

Figure 3 (a) Public Value of Factual TV in Britain and Sweden (Per Cent, ‘Very

Important’), (b) Public Value of Factual TV in Britain and Sweden (Per Cent, ‘Very andFairly Important’)

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whereas in Britain current affairs television has been accused of ‘dumbing down’,

especially current affairs programmes on commercial channels. As in the previous

section, we see minor differences in nature and re-construction programmes which

is connected to minor variations in content.

If we combine ‘fairly’ and ‘very’ important as one indicator we can observe that thevalues collapse into two groups (Figure 3b). The first consists of news, current affairs,

investigative journalism, political and consumer programmes, nature and documen-

tary series, which roughly two thirds of the respondents or more regard as important,

in Sweden and in the UK alike. The second group, which only one third or less regard

as important, consists of re-constructions, life style programmes, reality gameshows

and life experiments. The variations highlight different perceptions of current affairs

in Britain and Sweden, as noted already. British re-constructions are a slight exception

as they are more associated with public service content, for example Crimewatch on

BBC. Lifestyle also emerges as a genre with cultural variations, and this is also con-nected to the development of the genre in Britain where lifestyle has been dominated

by makeover, and therefore associated with light entertainment.

The clustering of traditional factual genres as important and popular factual genres

as not very important reveals a clear division between public and popular genres in

both countries. The dominance of the public/popular axis influences audience atti-tudes to programmes. Even when programmes cut across boundaries they tend to

be categorized as popular, and therefore less valued than other traditional genres.

Also in respect to the public values of genres we note some age and gender differ-

ences, although not as pronounced as compared with viewing habits (Tables 4 and 5).

Further, country variations are bigger when it comes to the value dimension. Onereason is that elderly people in Sweden rate most genres, with the exception of the

less traditional and generally less popular programme genres such as re-construction

and life experiment programmes, higher than the elderly in Britain do; we find the

biggest differences for current affairs and consumer programmes. Earlier discussion

of the nationally specific debates about current affairs, which in Britain has been

Table 4 Public Value of Factual and Reality TV by Age, UK and Sweden (Per Cent)

UK Sweden

16– 24 65þ 16 –24 65 –80

News 82 83 89 96Nature programmes 22 30 18 31Current affairs 25 24 45 44Consumer programmes 27 24 20 32Politics programmes 17 21 25 26Documentaries 10 10 15 10Reconstructions 9 11 14 2Docusoaps/reality game shows 6 1 10 1Lifestyle programmes 2 1 9 2

Life experiment programmes 3 1 4 0No. of respondents 241 778 108 155

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The pattern is the same in both countries; the correlation between education and evalu-

ation being slightly higher in Sweden. These two correlation patterns also remain if age is

taken into account, although the educational factor on the evaluation of politics pro-

grammes is not true for the elderly in Sweden and, with regard to current affairs, is no

longer strong and clear-cut in the UK. Other patterns found in Table 6 are clearly wea-kened or broken when the age factor is brought into the analysis. This result is perhaps

somewhat surprising when it comes to rating of lifestyle programmes, re-construction

and reality gameshows/docusoaps where we would have expected a more generally nega-tive correlation with educational levels. What the results indicate is that education plays a

part in attitudes towards traditional factual genres, such as politics, but not when it comes

to popular factual genres, where opinions remain the same no matter what the edu-

cational background of the respondents.

It is worth noting that regular viewers of all other programme categories apart from

news remain fairly low in comparison with the perceived high value of these pro-grammes (Figures 4 and 5). The results show that current affairs, investigative journal-

ism, political debates and consumer programmes are important genres that are

associated with prestige, but this does not mean that they are regularly watched.

The observation has been made for the same type of genres in the daily press, for

example editorials and political comments (Nilsson & Weibull, 2005). Television life-

style programmes and reality gameshows function the other way round: they are

watched more than they are regarded as important.

Where differences occur in Figures 4 and 5, this shows a higher valuing of news,

current affairs and politics programmes in Sweden, whereas viewers in Britain

watch a larger range of factual genres in Britain. Possible reasons for this may be

Figure 4 Public Value and Personal Interest in British Factual TV (Per Cent)

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related to the production contexts in both countries. In Sweden, traditional factual is

closely associated with public service channels, and therefore perceived as threatened

by commercial channels and counter scheduling during peaktime. It may be the case

that Swedish viewers feel it is more necessary to defend the public value of these genres

in the face of commercial imperatives. In Britain, traditional factual is not immune

from commercial pressures, but it is regularly scheduled on both public service and

commercial channels, and in the case of documentary has attracted strong ratings.

Overall, the most striking aspect of the comparative analysis between British and

Swedish viewers is the common reference points. The patterns in attitudes towards

the value of factual genres and viewing preferences are evident across both countries

and show a common trend in attitudes towards prestige factual genres in strong public

service environments. The other significant pattern is in the low value judgements of

popular factual genres. The value judgements applied to factual and reality genres are

likely to have influenced the reporting of viewing preferences. For example, there is

likely to be an over reporting for news, and under-reporting for watching populargenres which is not matched by the ratings profiles for these genres. This would

reflect an overall desire on behalf of British and Swedish viewers to want to be seen

as critically engaged with the changing nature of factual television, and to make

clear distinctions between public and popular genres.

Part 6: Information/Entertainment

Another way in which viewers understand factual and reality genres is according to

axes of information and entertainment. This categorization process is connected tovalues, as discussed in the previous section. The categorization of factual and reality

Figure 5 Public Value and Personal Interest in Swedish Factual TV

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genres maps onto the value accorded to these genres. Thus, news is categorized as

important and informative, and reality gameshows are categorized as not important

and entertaining. Some genres, such as nature series, or lifestyle are located somewhere

in between both value and categorization.

Figure 6 outlines the common patterns, with news categorized by almost all respon-dents as informative, and reality gameshows as entertaining. Although the results are

not surprising, they do highlight extreme ends of a fact/fiction scale used by viewers.The results are very much in line with respondents’ rating of importance:

information ¼ important, entertainment ¼ not important. It is likely that socio-cul-

tural discourses on the public knowledge agenda, and quality television, are connected

with respondents’ understanding of social value and information. There were a

surprising number of respondents who categorized traditional public service genres

such as current affairs or political debate programmes as both informative and enter-

taining, which may reflect the use of different stylistic techniques in current affairs, andthe performance of politicians in debate programmes. Documentary and re-construc-

tion programmes were primarily categorized as a mixture of information and

entertainment which given the content of these programmes is not unsurprising.

Lifestyle programmes were a genre which the respondents could not agree on, with

the same numbers categorizing it as informative and entertaining, and purely

entertaining. This is perhaps related to the popular formats of many lifestyle

programmes.

There is a connection between particular genres and communicative forms, in parti-

cular investigative approaches to society, more observational approaches to everyday

Figure 6 Categorization of Factual TV in Britain and Sweden (Per Cent)

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life, and constructed, or staged approaches to real people and their experiences. Thus,

connections between genre, communicative form and categorization are consistent

across public and popular value factors and genre evaluation.

The almost identical responses for both countries signals how powerful the tradi-

tional axes of public and popular, information and entertainment are as framingdevices. The broadcasting structures in Britain and Sweden share a public service

and commercial television system. In Britain this system has been in place since the

1950s, whereas in Sweden it was only introduced in the 1990s. The historical

context to broadcasting in both countries does mean there are substantial differences

in the production histories for factual and reality programmes, and in the develop-

ment of specific genres, such as documentary. These differences in production contexts

impact on the genres available and viewing profiles for specific genres. However, there

is little difference in the categorization of a range of genres as informative or entertain-

ing, or both. British and Swedish audiences clearly feel confident in using pre-existingcategories for evaluating genres.

Conclusion

Previous research into contemporary British and Swedish television audiences has

tended to concentrate on trends in each country (see for example Gauntlett & Hill,

1999; Nordicom-Sveriges Mediebarometer 2003, 2004; Rosengren, 1994). Focused

work has been conducted on audience responses to specific genres, for example docu-

mentary (Höijer, 1998a, 1998b), reality TV (Hill, 2005), or the reception of popular

culture (see Bolin & Forsman, 2002, amongst others). A recent publication onSwedish factual and reality television by the authors of this article mapped nationally

specific attitudes and responses to television (Hill, Weibull, & Nilsson, 2005). The

benefit of cross-national research is that we can examine similarities and differences

across culturally specific regions. Britain and Sweden share very similar broadcasting

systems, and so we might expect to find similar attitudes to public service and com-

mercial television. But, there are also differences in the commissioning and scheduling

of television in both countries, and we might expect this to impact on audience atti-

tudes to specific genres.

Jason Mittell (2001, pp. 19–20) argues for an examination of television genres as‘cultural categories, unpacking the processes of definition, interpretation, and evalua-

tion that constitute these categories’ in order to better understand ‘how genres

work to shape our media experiences.’ If we apply Mittell’s concept of television

genre to the research in this article then it is possible to argue that a factual and

reality map is being re-drawn by programme makers and viewers. In both Britain

and Sweden, programme makers have moved towards a reliance on popular factual

genres. In Britain this is across all channels, and in Sweden this is mainly concentrated

on commercial channels. There is still a commitment to news, but there is an increa-

sing use of hybrid genres in an attempt to popularize factual output. The impact of this

changing generic environment on audiences is that in both countries viewers havereacted by drawing a line between traditional and contemporary factual genres. It is

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precisely because of the redrawing of the factual map that viewers rely on traditional

ways of evaluating genres as public and informative, or popular and entertaining.

We defined factuality as ‘factual and reality experiences, imagination, values, that

provide settings within which media institutions operate, shaping the character of

factual and reality television processes and viewing practices’ (adapted from Corner & Pels, 2003, p. 3). It can be said that factuality in Britain and Sweden is one that is

mapped by viewers across public and popular axes. The public/popular divide isclosely associated with other value judgements, such as public service/commercial,and is the framing device for understanding factual and reality television. News and

reality stand apart from all other genres, at extreme ends of a public/popular axis.News is publicly important, reality gameshows are not. News is informative, reality

gameshows are not.

Viewers cluster those genres which use an investigative approach to social issues

and real life. News stands apart as a distinctive genre, although it shares an inves-tigative approach often used in current affairs and consumer programmes. Viewers

also cluster those genres that take a more constructed approach to people and their

everyday lives. The reality gameshow stands apart as a distinctive genre, although it

shares an observational approach often used in lifestyle or some documentary.

Viewers value traditional factual genres associated with investigations of reality

more than popular genres associated with constructions of reality. These value jud-

gements influence the reporting of viewing preferences, as there is a low reporting

for watching popular genres which is not matched by the ratings profiles for these

genres.

Where differences occur, they suggest the culturally specific responses to genredevelopment within distinct production contexts. One such culturally specific

genre is documentary. In Britain, there is a greater range of documentary, so

much so that certain sub-genres such as history or observational documentaries

were distinct categories in the British survey. Documentary in Sweden is more

limited, with a predominance of documentary on the public service channel, often

outside of peaktime, and foreign documentaries on commercial channels which are

less valued by viewers (Hill et al., 2005). The case of documentary highlights a differ-

ence in British and Swedish factual television whereby British viewers can expect a

wider range of factual genres than Swedish viewers. There is a clear connectionbetween the culturally specific production of distinct genres and their evaluation

by audiences.

In a 2005 report, Ofcom defined media literacy as ‘the ability to access, understand

and create communications in a variety of contexts’ (Livingstone, van Couvering and

Thumim, 2005). In this article it is critical engagement that is relevant to genre evalu-

ation. Buckingham argues that media literacy is social, in that we provide evidence of

our media literacies in social situations, and also it is critical, in the sense that ‘it

involves analysis, evaluation and critical reflection’ (2003, p. 38). Two related

reports presenting a literature review of adult media literacy in Britain (Livingstone &

Thumin, 2003; Livingstone, van Couvering & Thumim, 2005) comment that there isa lack of empirical evidence of adult media literacy. According to Livingstone et al.,

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‘whereas literature suggests that respondents understand, enjoy and trust many

broadcast genres, it is less clear that audience trust is always associated with good

understanding or critical judgment’ (2005, p. 4). In addition, they suggest ‘barriers

to media literacy include the changing forms of media representation (especially

hybrid genres that blur reality and drama)’ (p. 4). The quantitative data in thisarticle indicates that British and Swedish adult viewers are media literate, that they

share social and cultural value judgements of factual and reality genres. Furthermore,

these viewers have overcome barriers to media literacy by engaging with the changing

nature of factuality, and using pre-existing genre categories to evaluate the social and

cultural impact of hybrid genres on public service factual content.

Overall, the ways British and Swedish viewers categorize and value factual and

reality programmes highlights the importance of public discourse on television, and

pre-existing attitudes towards British and Swedish television contexts and genres.

The broadcasting environment, in particular the historical contexts to the develop-ment of factual genres, significantly shapes generic discourses. Audiences in two

public service dominated Northern European countries draw on commonly held

views about factual television as public service content. Thus, factual genres are intrin-

sically linked to policy debates and initiatives in both these countries about television

as a form of popular culture that should inform, educate and entertain. Factual genres

are most associated with the idea of television as a knowledge provider, and the core

principles that lie behind the provision of public service broadcasting. Audiences cat-

egorize and evaluate factual television as primarily public service content, and use it as

a means to further evaluate the health of public service broadcasting in a changing

media environment.Although public service broadcasters have undergone a period of intense change,

forced to compete for audiences in a highly commercial and de-regulated media

environment, the public knowledge project has not disappeared. However, trends in

factual television suggest the division between public and popular genres will be detri-

mental to public service broadcasters. Traditional factual genres are associated with

importance and prestige, but this does not mean that they are regularly watched.

Popular factual functions the other way round, they are watched more than they

are regarded as important. This is even more pronounced when comparing age differ-

ences in viewing habits and profiles for public service and commercial channels. Such adivision is cause for concern as younger viewers may value public factual genres but

they are not necessarily watching. Perhaps we need to engage with ‘popular public

service’ factual genres (Ellis, 2000). Popular public genres would be a step towards

bridging the gap between the public and the popular. Ellis suggests that public

service broadcasters can be a touchstone for quality programming by being a

popular public service in a multi-channel, multimedia age. He is cautionary about

the outcome of such a move, but nevertheless sees it as a necessary means to retain

dominance in broadcasting, and rights to licence fees. The trends in this research indi-

cate that public service broadcasters have a powerful role to play in the development of

factual genres, but that they are in danger of losing the next generation of viewers if they fail to cross the public popular divide.

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Notes

[1] The research in Britain was funded by the Independent Television Commission and Broadcasting

Standards Commission (legacy regulators of Ofcom), and carried out in association with Ipsos-

RSL; and the research in Sweden was funded by the Media Management and Transformation

Centre at Jönköping International Business School, with a small grant from the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, Göteborg University, and carried out in co-operation

with the SOM Institute, Göteborg University.

[2] Interview with Annette Hill, November 2004.

[3] Some differences in the questionnaire of methodological significance might also influence the

results. The Swedish questionnaire used a different response scale compared to the British; in

Sweden frequency in watching was measured by the response alternatives: ‘daily’, ‘several

times a week’; ‘once a week’; ‘once/several times a month’; ‘more rarely /never’; in Britain by:‘always’; ‘most of the time’; ‘sometimes’; ‘rarely’; ‘never’. However, the hierarchical ratings

evident in the results or this question were also evident in other attitudinal questions on actua-

lity or ethics that used identical response scales. Therefore, minor variations in the response scale

are likely to be related to generic preferences.

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Factual and Reality Television Trends

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