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2023 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

6. Transmedia Comedy: BBC Three, Genre Distribution and Pls Like

Authors : Matthew Freeman, Anthony N. Smith

Published in: Transmedia/Genre

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

This chapter looks at BBC Three sitcom Pls Like (2017–) and considers how its dissemination across multiple online platforms including YouTube relates to the widespread contemporary practice of transmedia distribution. This chapter demonstrates how emergent transmedia distribution practices can inform new approaches to the comedy genre. In particular, we consider how uses of genre can, in the creation of online programming, suit the cultural specificities of multiple digital platforms as part of a transmedia distribution rollout.

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In Pls Like, the television comedy performer Liam Williams is playing a fictionalised version of himself (who is named Liam Williams).

‘Short-form’ is typically used within media culture to describe video content that is shorter than 10 minutes in duration, while content that is between 10 and 20 minutes in duration (such as Pls Like) is labelled mid-form. ‘Shorter-form’ is used here as a term to incorporate both and is relative to longform (Enders Analysis 2016).

Tasked with a similar objective to appeal to 16–34-year-olds and facing the same challenges around attracting this demographic group, the UK’s other public service broadcaster, Channel 4, adopted a similar commissioning and distribution strategy in the 2010s. The corporation has simultaneously published comedy shorts not only on its own video-streaming service, All 4, but also on YouTube. Published under Channel 4’s ‘Comedy Blaps’ banner, such comedy-short series have included video-gamer sitcoms Avatards (2016) and the Muslim punk-band comedy, Lady Parts (2018). Demonstrating the potential for comedy shorts to serve a traditional pilot function, Channel 4 have since developed Avatards and Lady Parts, as well as other Comedy Blaps shorts, into traditional long-form broadcast sitcoms.

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Title: Transmedia Comedy: BBC Three, Genre Distribution and Pls Like
Authors: Matthew Freeman
Anthony N. Smith
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Book: Transmedia/Genre
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-15582-6

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-031-15583-3

Copyright Year: 2023
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15583-3_6