Television: His Dark Materials - Audience and Industry

 His Dark Materials: Industry and Audience blog tasks

Audience

1) Read this audience rating guide for His Dark Materials. Based on the screening and this article, who do you think the target audience is for His Dark Materials and why? What about psychographic groups? You can revise Pyschographics here.

Rated for 14+ by HBO due to some scenes that may be frightening to younger children.

the psychographics groups are the explorers 

2) What audience pleasures are offered by His Dark Materials - The City of Magpies? Apply Blumler and Katz's Uses and Gratifications theory to the episode. Make sure you provide specific examples from the episode to support your ideas.

Personal Identity: 

Personal Relationships: actors form relationships to fans

Diversion (Escapism): there's other worlds so the viewers can imagine they are 

3) Thinking of the 3 Vs audience pleasures (Visceral, Vicarious and Voyeuristic pleasures), which of these can be applied to His Dark Materials? Refer to specific scenes or moments in the episode to explain your answer. 

Vicarious pleasure at the audience can experience something through the characters

4) How did fans react to Season 2 of His Dark Materials? What about critic reviews? You can find some possible answers for this in this BBC website article on the critical reception for His Dark Materials and watch the fan reaction video above.

Many people agreed it was a great season but critics say it didn’t top the first.

5) What might be some of the preferred and oppositional readings for His Dark Materials? Why did some fans love it? Why have other people criticised it? 

Some fans loved it because of the books many people have already read it so it becoming a show was just a surprise bonus for them

Industries

1) Which companies produced this His Dark Materials series?

an international audience by the BBC and the American television network HBO

2) What were the UK viewing figures for A City of Magpies? How did this compare to season 1 of His Dark Materials?

The first episode of the first series of His Dark Materials series was watched by audiences of 7.2 million in the UK and 423,000 on HBO. The first broadcasts of the CSP episode had audiences of 4.4 million on BBC1 and 227,000 on HBO.

3) What was American network HBO's role in making His Dark Materials and why is this important? Look at the notes above for more on this.

They broadcasted the episodes

4) What famous stars are in His Dark Materials and why do you think they were selected for the show? Watch the Comic Con panel video in the notes above to see the stars talking about the show.

Lim - Manuel Miranda was chosen for this role as he already has a big fan base so it just increases the viewers

5) Who are Bad Wolf and what do they produce?

They are a TV Drama Production and they create ambitious, imaginative and relevant drama for the global TV marketplace.