programme analysis

Programme Analysis: The Archers 

 

The Archers is a Contemporary drama in a rural setting from the world's longest running soap opera. Follow the residents of the fictional farming community of Ambridge, created by Godfrey Basely. Episodes of the archer release every day on BBC radio 4 at either 14:00 or 19:00 no longer that 13 minutes except on a Sunday where they release an omnibus episode which basically explains the entirety of the week’s episodes. Has over 5 million listeners and is considered a significant part of British popular culture Running for 65 years. This shows fanbase was traditionally viewed by females who looked after the house (a housewife). More people who are over the age of 50 also watch a lot of the show, as an audience member you can watch the film through radio 4. 

This episode starts with the host Roi field Brown announcing that the episode starts on the 29/01/24 Monday’s episode of the archers and that it’ll be playing on BBC radio 4. It moves onto the intro song of the show that carries on for about 15 seconds and then it fades away for 5 seconds before starting with the show. The first scene begins with “Tracey” cleaning “Jolene’s car” this is backed up through the scrubbing sounds we hear and the dialogue between the pair of them. The scenery then moves outside at 0:50 we know this because of the diegetic sounds of birds chirping in the background, this makes the audience feel a part of the actual show as we are reacting alongside the characters. Dialogue arises between the two as they talk about the pub and how the doors are and outside of the pub are getting renovated. The way that the conversation flows feels like you’d hear this in a day-to-day conversation with your friend, it doesn’t feel like we aren’t just listening to them and this gets justified by the diegetic sound in the background that is used to push this agenda. The scene then moves onto Jolene and Kenton conversating in the pub planning about how, apart from the electrics, how they’ll finally be able to start a pub back up, before switching once more to Jolene and Kenton walking outside to see Tracey and Emma washing her car. Tracey is playing with Emma and trying to splash her with water saying that she’s not been of use to her and she hasn’t been helping her with the car and we know we can interpret this through diegetic sound of the laughter and splashes in the background we know that water is being thrown around. They then hear good news on how the pub will be open again and we know that they get Happy as we can hear the joy. This makes the audience aware that this is something good that has happened and could possibly make them as they go home to put on their work clothes whilst also making it aware to others. After this event we are hit with a time jump, and we take place in the pub and we are able to infer this due to the sound in the background and of cups being clinked together and the rise of noise which lets us know more people are in the background now. We hear that they’re collecting the cups but as they do so they discuss the announcement of the winner of the drinking competition, Kenton starts of b requesting silence from the audience in which in return of it he announces the winner. This marks the end of the episode which is then followed by an outro music which slowly gets faded out in the background. There isn’t any breaks in the 13 minutes of listening this makes it a show that flows perfectly without interruption. The purpose of Archers was established in 1951 to educate farmers which, it was hoped would increase food production after the second world war. It was initially thought that the show could be used as a way for the Ministry of Agriculture to communicate important information to farmers. Now it aims to provide essential drama from the heart of the country.