Paramount Pictures Corparation (P1)

Paramount is the fifth oldest surviving film studio in the world. Since its first film release "Les Amours de la Rien Élizabeth" on July 12th 1912, Paramount Pictures has produced thousands of films in all genres, raging from silent and black and white to modern blockbusters that cost hundreds of millions to make, as well as its film branch Paramount also produce and release several television series, including, Charmed, the original Star Trek, The Brady Bunch, Happy Days, The Untouchables, and more recently, Dr.Phil, NCIS, The 4400, and Criminal Minds. Since its relatively small beginnings Paramount has grown substantially, today Paramount's revenue is 1.2 Billion dollars, with a yearly operating income 300million dollars. Paramount pictures has been a key player in film and television for over a hundred years and has made some of the most iconic films of the last 50years. Paramount transcends genre and setting and makes consistently outstanding films, and has produced many of the decades most popular television shows. Paramount is a commercial company that is in direct competition with other film studios and other distribution companies such as Disney and universal studios. Paramount is one of the highest grossing studios in the world, grossing 1.92 billion dollars in 2011, while competitors, such as 20th Century Fox, grossed only 985 million dollars.

Distribution and Audience (P3)(P4)

DISTRIBUTION&CHANNELS
Charmed was originally broadcast on The WB television channel in America, Charmed was also broadcast in Sweden, Switzerland, France, Brazil, Israel, Argentina, Austria, Germany, UK, Estonia, Slovenia, Finland, Italy, Malaysia, Japan, Russia, Spain, Hungary and Mexico. After the end of its original run, Charmed was then broadcast mostly on Channel 4, and its subsidiary E4, Charmed was also shown on PickTV. Charmed is also available on both the UK and US versions of Netflix, and is available to watch on other sites on the internet. Charmed DVD's are still selling, and can be bought as a whole box set, or s individual series. This shows that the show was, and still is widely available for people to watch, this demonstrates that the show was popular with its viewers and remains so, because it is available on Netflix, this shows that the show can still pull in new viewers.

GENDER&AGE

 Most of the WB's programming is aimed mostly at women between 16-34, Charmed's first few series follow this pattern, by exploring the relationship between sisters and by having a girly fantasy theme, as seen in the first trailer above. Throughout the series Charmed has evolved into a more action based show, to accommodate for their growing and ageing audience, also by encompassing more action and special effects into the show it makes it more enticing to not just female but male audiences also. In the UK Charmed was first broadcast on Living Tv, a channel that, like The WB, broadcasts programmes mostly aimed at women, however Charmed is  now shown on Channel 4, E4, and PickTV. Living TV is mostly aimed at women who are in the categories of C1,C2,D, these categories suggest that although Charmed had a large fan base, the majority of these were women who were unskilled workers, or labourers, or did not earn much money, this co-incides well with Charmed's fantasy genre, as the show will give these people chance to escape into there fantasy world, while they watch the show. The spending power of the majority of the audience for Charmed is average or slightly below, the audience is comprised mostly of women who may have children, or younger girls that may have disposable income, but not a great deal of it, this would mean that the sponsorship and advertisements will be for main stream companies, with products of an average price, and that are easily available to but, for example a supermarket such as ALDI, or a car that is available on finance for a low monthly rate, rather  than advertising a BMW that costs £30,000 pounds or an expensive supermarket like WAITROSE, both of which would be well out of the budget for many of the viewers of Charmed.

  

LIFESTYLE

This website demonstrates that Charmed is mostly broadcast on E4, mostly in the morning between 11-12am, however Charmed is also shown on a range of other different channels. Before Charmed ended British cable and satellite TV channel broadcast episodes of Charmed back to back every weekday afternoon and broadcast the newest episode of Charmed on a Thursday evening between 5 and 6 o'clock, Living Tv was a channel that broadcast programmes predominantly to target its large female audience, which would work well with Charmed's large female following.  Charmed is mainly broadcast on E4, a subsidiary of Channel 4, which broadcasts many Us imports like, 90210, The Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother,  Ugly Betty and Scrubs, Charmed along with these other programmes are mostly aimed at people aged 15-35, the most lucrative age group. (IMDb) An IMDb survey of its users revealed that the series as a whole scored an average of 8.6/10, with no episode being given less than a 6.5/10, this shows us that Charmed was and continues to be a very popular show.

POPULARITY&SIMILAR

 Charmed's first series attracted 5.5million viewers on average, and was ranked second in the WB networks most popular shows, ever since its first series, Charmed has never dipped below third in the networks top shows and has never dipped below 3million viewers on average per series, this shows that Charmed has been consistently popular and has kept its original fans as well as gaining new ones. Charmed could be compared to the immensely popular TV series Charlies Angles, in the way that the very basic premise of the show is much the same, in that three unassuming women are fighting crime and helping to change the world, not only te premise but also the viewers of the two programmes are largely similar, the programmes are both aimed at women between 15-35 and have incorporated more action scenes later in the series to attract a wider male audience.  Unlike Charmed, Charlies Angels has been re-invented and has had several remakes made and even a film made which has made it incredibly popular and well known.

ADVERTISING 
Charmed is not widely advertised now, due to it's lack of following after it ended. The episodes and series' are all on Netflix, however this also doesn't widely advertise the programme.
When Charmed was on regularly it was advertised a couple of days before it was due to air so that more people who viewed the channels it was on, were more likely to watch it. The more advertisements it had on prior to the showing, as well as the same day, more audiences were more inclined to watch the programme therefore increasing the ratings.
As well as this, when a season would end of season box set would also be made for fans which would be advertised equally as much as the series, if not more so that it would increase seasonal ratings on the distributing channel.

A trailer for the box set 1-6 is shown below.

CHARMED CASE STUDY (P2)

CHARMED

GENRE

Charmed is an supernatural action televised series with elements of horror and fantasy, Charmed was created and written by Constance. M. Burge, who has also written for and produced television series such as, Ally McBeal and Boston Public. Charmed's genre is somewhat unique, in the way that t combines supernatural action with family drama and even some crime and mystery, Charmed could be compared to television series such as Charlies Angels, that also focus's on 3 women who fight crime. In this way Charmed is repeating a successful formula of female witches or females involved in the supernatural, Charmed could be considered a contemporary of series like Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Supernatural, all of which could be considered as being made popular by fore-runners like the original Bewitched series. Charmed however, breaks many generic conventions by mixing genres, and combining fast paced, high octane action, with slow, family scenes that explore relationships, and love, this is what differs Charmed from related series, and what contributed to its major success with women.

PURPOSE&CONTENT

The show focus' on three sister witches, Prudence, Piper and Phoebe, and later when Prudence is killed, a long lost sister Paige is introduced into the family. The stars of the show are Shannen Doherty(Prudence), Holly Marie Combs(Piper), Alyysa Milano(Phoebe) and Rose McGowan(Paige), there is many supporting actors that play re-occuring characters throughout the series, most notably these include Brian Krause, who plays Leo, the sisters guardian angel and Pipers husband, and father to her children, Julian McMahon, who plays Cole Turner, Phoebes true love and soul mate, but also a powerful demon called Belthazor, who later becomes the 'Source', a powerful being with extraordinary supernatural abilities, and Kaley Cuoco, known for playing penny in 'The Big Bang Theory', who plays Billie a lost witch who is helped by the sister witches to find her true path. Charmed focus' on the Halliwell sisters and there powers, the three sister witches are the "Charmed Ones", a prophesied trio of witches who will once and for all destroy "The Source" a powerful demon who is believed to be the root of all evil. Eventually after losing there sister Prudence and finding a new sister, Paige the Halliwell sisters vanquish "The Source", only for his powers to be inherited by Phoebe's husband, Cole, who unbeknownst to the sisters was already a powerful demon. After we see the relationship between Phoebe and Cole deteriorate he becomes almost indestructible and does everything in is power to get Phoebe back. Eventually Cole is vanquished, but still exists on a spiritual plane through which he contacts Phoebe. The sisters spend much of there time fighting evil an correcting the wrongs that magic has created in the world,the sisters must also battle to keep there magic hidden from there mortal partners and to keep normal functioning lives in society. Charmed not only is a fantasy programme but explores relationships between family and friends and questions the morals of the sisters, they are often forced to choose between two great evils and are forced to make great personal sacrifices to save the world and keep people safe from demons itches and warlocks. The last episode of Charmed shows us that the Charmed sisters and there offspring eventually conquer evil, and are able o fulfil their personal goals of having a quiet family lifestyle, we see Piper and Leo in the ancestral family home, old and peaceful surrounded by grandchildren. The purpose of Charmed is to entertain, Charmed also sends a message about family, and relationships, and explores these themes constantly. Below is a list of Charmed series, with the number of episodes and that the date that each series premiered, and also the timeslot in which it was shown on its original run.

FORM&STYLE

Charmed is set in modern day San Francisco, the sets, except the Underworld, are all realistic, and the family manor is a real house located in San Francisco. Each Charmed episode is around 45 minutes long, and has a linear and serial timeline, so each episode will reference the one preceding it or will reference something form a much earlier episode. In Charmed imagery and costume is used frequently to show us who someone is, which side they are on, and even their mood, for example, demons are usually shot in dark places with only a little lighting from below, this coupled with their dark, usually black and tattered costumes show us their evil and deceiving nature, juxtaposed to this is the "Elders" angle like beings that are portrayed in long white and gold flowing robes, always brightly lit, usually from above, and are rarely seen on earth, and are frequently said to be "UpThere" which we would assume is a heavenly like place, this along with soft and never raised voices give us an image of a typical pure, gentle angelic character, which shows who they are and that they will not be a threat to anyone dealing with them. Charmed often includes fast moving fight scenes and so the way the camera moves to portray these are paramount to the whole feel of Charmed, the camera mostly focus' on which ever sister is fighting, and often jumps from a body shot to a long, or establishing shot, the fight scenes often dwell on the physical combat and injuries caused, often resulting in death.

PRODUCTION PROCESS

Charmed was first aired in October 1998, its last episode being broadcast in May 2006, during the eight year run of charmed there were 178 episodes of Charmed, with Holly Marie Combs being in every one of them, after the programme ended a series of spin off comic books were created that are still published and are successful today. Charmed was originally broadcast in America on WB television, at 8 o'clock on a saturday night, because of the timing the show must be family appropriate, for a pre-watershed show some scenes in Charmed can be quite violent and sometimes graphic, for example the fight scenes, one of which shows part of a woman's ear being ripped off, and when demons are vanquished by the sisters, they mostly catch fire and burst into a fireball.Produced by Spelling Television and Paramount Pictures, Charmed had a wide release and large audience, through the series the characters change and evolve, the action and focus of the series changes to accommodate for the audience growing up and to appeal to wider audience, for example as special effects developed they were used more in the series to create more action scenes, perhaps to entice a male audience, rather than the largely female following the series originally attracted.