The Key Conventions of Soap Operas

The Key Conventions of Soap Operas

Soap operas have many conventions that make them different to the

other types of programs we watch on TV. Soaps can be separated from

even their closest types of programs by looking into and studying

their conventions. The Bill for instance shares many of the

conventions of a soap, but not all of them, which separates it from

being a soap.

Broadcasting

To get a wide range of viewing, almost every single soap is

broadcasted before the 9 o'clock watershed. So children can watch them

as well as adults. Some soaps are broadcasted around lunchtime and

repeated after school around 5. One reason for broadcasting at

lunchtime is for the housewives to take a break, sit down has lunch

while watching what they want to watch. If they have small pre-school

children, they would feel safe with them watching it too because its

before the watershed and is unlikely to contain anything unsuitable.

Also the elderly, who maybe don't have a lot of company, can watch the

soaps. The un-employed and people off sick from work or school can

also get a chance to watch. 2 examples of soaps that broadcast around

lunchtime are Neighbors, Family Affairs and Home and Away. (They are

all shown after the other so as not to clash)

A soap that breaks the broadcasting being 9pm convention is Night and

Day. This soap broadcasts twice, once before the watershed and once at

around midnight. By doing this they can include scenes of violence,

nudity and swearing in the late broadcasting, which would not be

allowed to be shown before 9pm. This would hopefully attract another

different type of viewer, which would boost their ratings.

Storylines.

All soaps have multiple and continuous storylines, that usually

intertwine which each other.

Many storylines don't have resolutions, for example Marc in Eastenders

has Aids and the story always pops into episodes, where he goes to get

new drugs, has to tell his partners about it and recently he has been