The Killing is a Danish TV series released in 2007 that was adapted to an English version in 2011.
The primary audience for this product is people who are interested in crime dramas, as this is the genre of the series.
The secondary audience would be people who wish to learn about the TV culture of foreign countries like Denmark since this series is produced in and set in Denmark.
No Offence is a production by AbbotVision, An independent company founded by the writer Paul Abbot who also wrote Shameless.
No Offence was a critical and commercial success in both the UK and France, similarly to The Killing No offence became popular in a different country to it’s country of origin.
- Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) – No offence was originally aired by the public service broadcast Company Channel 4- Media made less to make money and focusing more on artistic intent.
- “High quality minority interest programming is provided [by PSBs]”
- “Diverse Ownership creates diverse products”
Commercial Media: Channel 4(NF)
Public Service Broadcaster (PSB): Channel 4(NF), DR(TK)
Horizontal integration:
Vertical Integration: Channel 4 Television Corporation is the owner of Channel 4. C4TC owns other companies in the Television industry such as Film4. The parent company is the department for digital, culture, media and Sport, a department of the UK government.
Hesmondhalgh: How media Companies minimise risk and maximise profit
| HESMONDHALGH | CASE STUDIES |
| Internationalisation | No offence became popular in France and was broadcast on the French national broadcast channel, France2. The Killing was broadcast in the UK were it became popular in a different country to it’s country of origin. |
| Remakes | The Killing received an English language remake of the original series |
| Serialisation | No Offence used the same cast as Shameless, A series produced by the same company who produced No Offence, Abbotvision. |
Livingstone and Lunt:
Consumer-based Regulation System – Based around the desires of audiences who consume the media.
Citizen-based Regulation System – Directs media producers to “contribute to the enrichment of cultural and social life and the potential for self-development of individuals, groups and communities”.
The implications of the 2003 communications act on media regulation: Created Ofcom, a government regulatory organisation As a result, independent televsion production companies were freed up to produce content that was more commercially viable (Consumer based rather than Citizen based). “Little accountability was forthcoming regarding actions to further citizen interests”.
The drawback of a self-regulated system is that without outside regulation there is no way for standards and laws to be enforced within media companies.
| CATEGORY | FAMILIARITIES: from your chosen CSP’s | DIFFERENCES: from your chosen CSP’s | THEORY |
| CHARACTERS | Both in The Killing and No Offence detective characters are female, some middle aged instead of the traditional young male, independent character | PROPP, presents the idea of STOCK CHARACTERS, inc ‘hero’, ‘false hero’, etc. | |
| NARRATIVE | CHATMAN / FREYTAG /TODOROV | ||
| THEMES | murder story in the killing – In no Offence, the police team is dedicated to enforcing law and justice in a “criminal-ridden” area. | LEVI-STRAUSS the use of key themes to structure stories and characters around familiar themes: family, community, law and order, justice. Often set up as binary oppostions: right/wrong urban/rural, young/old, good/bad | |
| REPRESENTATION | PIERCE / BARTHES / SAUSSURE: SEMIOTICS radical and reactionary representations of police, family, law and order, through a range of signs (visual, graphic, audio, narrative, thematic etc) | ||
| TECHNICAL CODES / LANGUAGE OF MOVING IMAGE (music, setting, props, lighting, use of camera, editing etc) | |||