Soap Opera Magazine / Listings Magazine Titles

27^th August – 2^nd Sept 2011   TV Choice Magazine.

All the colours that are used are very bright to make the magazine really stand out, even colours that clash like the ones used in the main storyline uses florescent pink text and its on a bright yellow background.

The main story lines on the front cover are in a big bold text for example ‘Kidnap Drama’ and ‘Its Mandy’ and then the explanation or extra information including the soaps name is in bold italics for example ‘Kirk and Tommy’s’ and ‘Ian’s Shock’. This draws the audiences attention to the storyline which then makes the interested in what the rest of the description says.

All the writing on the front cover is very brief with dramatic words used like ‘shock’ and ‘drama’ this also makes the audience 1) want to buy the magazine to find out more and 2) watch the programme. The captions give the audience a hint of the drama that is going to happen without giving too much away at the same time.

The pictures that are used all have the same type of format, the main storyline for the week (in this case Eastenders) takes up the majority of the front cover, there is a huge picture of the characters that the storyline involves and then has a caption and storyline underneath. It also has a smaller storyline from the same soap to draw even more attention to the soap and to make the audience want to watch it.

If the story lines are specific to particular characters then it has a picture of those characters which has been taken specifically for the magazine and promotion purposes. Whereas the adverts for soaps that include lots of characters or that are giving information about the soap for example ‘Doctor Who Returns’ and ‘My Family the last one ever’ have snapshots taken from the programme itself or pictures of the characters taken on set. The ones taken on set or from the programme give the audience even more insight into what’s going to happen making them more interested.

The Corrie advert uses the orange around the words and picture to draw attention to the soap but then it uses the bold black writing which gives connotations of it being a bad storyline for the characters and that it is bad news. This is also the case for the main Eastenders one as well, the ‘We’re having a baby’ is all bright giving connotations of positivity and happiness and then the ‘Kat and Alfie celebrate – but for how long?’ is in black to give the storyline a twist and to show connotations of negativity.

Giving a storyline a big twist and turning a positive into a negative is a great way magazines help draw attention to the soaps.