Favourite TV Programme

Brothers & Sisters

Brothers & Sisters is an American drama about an upper class family, made up of 5 siblings (3 brothers and 2 sisters) all aged over 20 and their mother. They live in California and their father created a family business but had a secret affair and later died. The series is about the problems that arise due to the father's mistakes and the effects that it has on the family.

The gratifications from the program include escapism as the constant challenges that occur leave the audience intrigued and interested and you forget about everyday life. Also, it gives emotional release, for example, when Justin is called back to Afghanistan after recently coming out of rehab for his drug addiction. It also gives positive emotional release, such as when Kitty and Robert are able to adopt a baby boy. Brothers & Sisters gives aesthetic enjoyment as all of the male cast are good looking and have a fit and manly appearance, particularly Justin, Tommy and robert, which is pleasing to the female audience.

It also enables me to connect with my family as we rarely have chance to be together, however, we make time to watch the program together. Over the series you become emotionally attached to the characters and their life situations so it can act as a substitute for real-life companionship. I feel encouraged to carry on watching it to satisfy my curiosity of what will happen next. Finally, I am able to find models of behaviour from the characters as they are all successful in their careers and work hard to do well.

Another gratification gained from the program is the variety of subject content that the text contains. For example, it has business content relating to the Ohja family business and, family content about the issues that they encounter and how they overcome them and romance content. Romance is also able to target a wider audience as it has a homosexual couple within the plot as well as other heterosexual couples.

Brothers & Sisters gratifies all of the 4 sections of the Uses and Gratifications theory. The text follows a mainstream narrative structure by Todorov as during each episode the equilibrium is disrupted and the rest of the episode is used to restore it. For example, in one episode, Justin Walker had overdosed on drugs and is in a critical condition. By the end of the episode, the family have found Justin, taken him to hospital and have began looking for rehabilitation centres. However, the scheduling and placement of the text is Niche. Before the program finished, it was shown on More 4 at 10pm which was necessary due to some of the adult content that it contains. Also, More 4 is not a very popular channel and was not accessible to all TV owners. More 4 was a channel set up by Channel 4 to target an adult audience which sophisticated and intellectual content.