Discussion of Eastenders

Discussion of Eastenders

‘Switch that rubbish off!’ this is often a sign that the younger

generation of a household are gathered to watch the next instalment of

the UK’s most highly viewed soap opera ‘Eastenders’. In my experience,

I always knew when one of the many soap opera’s was about to begin as

I would hear that exact instruction, (or one of similar meaning),

being aimed, towards my sisters as they switch on the television

between the hours of seven and nine o’ clock of most weekday evenings.

My Father felt so strongly that this word ‘rubbish’ was the only way

to describe soap operas, for a while we had a television ban and had

to force ‘conversation’ during dinner times!

Soap Opera’s have this superglue effect to most people, which is the

desired result. All that is required is to catch a small glimpse of a

storyline and no matter how ‘rubbish’ it is often considered to be,

you do want to know what happens next and you’re stuck to the plot,

this is the successful formula.

December 9th , 1960 was when the UK’s first ever television Soap Opera

was launched. Coronation Street began on ITV and is still on our

screens today after fourty years of successful, record-breaking viewer

ratings. It took twenty-five years for the BBC to create anything as

successful as Coronation Street, when Eastenders came onto our screens

in 1985, which is also still highly successful today and is viewed by

millions of people worldwide!

Prior to Coronation Street, Soap Opera’s had already evolved and were

first created as radio broadcasts, using actors and actresses as

character voices with hand-created sound effects to represent their

act...

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...ve experienced

themselves. On the radio they are never sure exactly what the image is

supposed to be, Eastenders is directed at that basis of human

relation.

I believe that the majority of the codes used in Eastenders cannot be

transferred to the viewer by any other medium as successfully as

television proves to do so today. When a new medium overcomes

television in this field, a whole new Soap Opera era will begin.

Bibliography

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Soap Opera by Dorothy Hobson (Polity Publishers)

www.mtr.org (Museum of Television and Radio)

Eastenders Real Soap by Karen Sinotok (Generation Publications)

Eastenders Who’s Who by Kate Lock (BBC Publications) (NOT USED)

Brookside Real Soap by Kay Nicholls (Generation Publications) (NOT

USED)

Reading Television by John Fiske (Routledge) (NOT USED)