Teenage kicks: How E4 captured the teen TV marketChannel 4 has had its problems but for younger audiences it is in a league of its

own, as the success of series such as Skins and the Inbetweeners proves...

No TV audience is harder to impress than teenagers. Savvy and fickle at the best

of times, they have even more distractions, from Spotify to Wii, in today's

fragmented media world. What's more, when teenagers do watch in this era of

iPlayer and “catch-up” viewing, they are just as likely to click on a laptop rather

than turning on the television set at a time decided by the schedulers.

But it would be wrong to think this new generation has given up on television. The

teen genre, in particular, is enjoying a golden age, with a string of quintessentially

British programmes which have won acclaim and a cult following.

These include the sci-fi hit Misfits, about a bunch of Asbo kids doing community

service who have magic powers; the edgy sex-and-drugs drama series Skins, set

in Bristol and featuring Dev Patel before he starred in Slumdog Millionaire; and

the hilariously rude teenage boys' comedy The Inbetweeners.

While the three shows are quite different, each made by a different independent

production company, they have a lot in common, too — not least that they have

been commissioned by the same broadcaster, Channel 4, or more specifically its

E4 entertainment channel.

C4 may have its problems — it's currently without a chief executive and accused

of a creative drift with soon-to-be-axed Big Brother — but this raft of teen

programming stands out as a success. In contrast, the BBC is having less impact

with this demographic, while ITV and Five hardly bother.

Skins, which launched in January 2007, will begin a fourth series later this month.

Meanwhile, The Inbetweeners has been recommissioned after debuting in May

2008, and Misfits, which only started in November, has already been given a

second series.

For C4 head of drama Camilla Campbell, there is a simple formula: “It's about

good writing, good characterisation, good production values. We apply the same

levels of quality as we do to dramas on our main channel.”

Yet as Campbell and director of television Kevin Lygo explain, C4 does go to great

lengths to ensure teen programmes have an authentic, contemporary feel. This

ranges from choosing the right language and clothes on-screen to finding the best

music for the soundtrack and perfecting the advance marketing buzz online. It is

essential, says Lygo, because “what they smell faster than a lot of other

audiences is pretension”.

Read this and consider: how are e4 seeking to shape a sense of young people’s collective identity, and why are they shaping this collective identity?

What’s in it for Channel 4?

What are the key characteristics of the audience?

But everything depends on the writing. So it is interesting that all three shows

were dreamed up by older, experienced screenwriters, who grew up on films and

books such as The Breakfast Club, Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting and Sue

Townsend's Adrian Mole.

Skins was devised four years ago by Bryan Elsley, now 48, while Howard

Overman, creator of Misfits, is in his thirties. So are Iain Morris and Damon

Beesley, co-writers of The Inbetweeners.

Of course, the programme-makers also need the input of younger writers, who

can point out: “Ooh, we'd never say that!” In the case of Skins, Elsley was inspired

to devise the show by his son Jamie, then in his teens, and the production team

has gone on to set up a “writing room” to mentor young writers. This bore fruit

early on with Daniel Kaluuya, who also acted in the first two series, writing one

episode at 18.

Georgia Lester, 20, is the youngest writer to have penned her own episode in the

next series.

Collaborating with young writers helps to ensure storylines are credible. “It is very

rooted in their own experiences,” says Lygo of The Inbetweeners. “I think there is

not a single thing that didn't happen to one of them.”

This quest for authenticity extends to every part of the production process —

particularly the music, for which Skins is famed, such has been its ability to

“break” up-and-coming bands. Alex Hancock, a university friend of Elsley's son,

started advising the programme-makers on the soundtrack and was singled out

by NME as the 24th most influential figure to watch in the UK music industry.

There are other ways to keep the shows looking authentic, says Campbell, such as

using teenage actors rather than the American practice of trying to pass off a 35-

year-old as a teen. For that reason, almost the entire cast of Skins was dropped

after the second series and replaced with younger faces.

C4's most important decision was to push programming which is distinctively

British. Part of the thinking behind commissioning Skins and Misfits was that the

teenage audience had been badly under-served until then with homegrown

drama, providing little to watch apart from glossy soap Hollyoaks, also on C4.

Lygo thinks there is a gritty British

reality and self-deprecating humour which Misfits, Skins and Inbetweeners all

share. “We are a bit more warts-and-all, a bit more angsty than Americans. The

OC [set in Los Angeles] was great but everyone was preposterously beautiful. If

the actors were all supermodels [in British shows], I'm not sure we'd take it.”

Indeed, the characters in Misfits all have slightly shoddy fantasy powers. “You

think we're superheroes?” says one character, knowingly. “Nah, that only

happens in America.”

The teenagers I spoke to certainly appreciate this. “It's more real,” said one. “I

feel a sort of national pride,” added another. That is understandable when so

much of the other programming on E4 is US formats (tonight sees the launch of

Glee, an edgy new American high-school series with a musical twist).

Lygo says what is most extraordinary is the impact of the internet on the habits of

this new generation: “We can really gauge how fans like it. These three shows go

through the roof on online viewings and fan chatting. Other Channel 4 shows do

OK but there's much less buzz online.”

The ability of viewers to be able to watch on the web — one 14-year-old told me

she was too young to have seen the first series of Skins but watched it all via the

C4 website last summer — has dramatically increased the total audience. Younger

viewers are “more selfish about what they watch and when they want it,” says

Lygo.

So a show such as Skins typically gets one million viewers per episode on its first

transmission but reruns and online viewings have trebled that to more than 2.5

million. Much of the marketing and advertising is aimed online too.

Lygo, Campbell and E4 boss Angela Jain can justly claim that their strike-rate with

these teen shows has been pretty good. “E4 doesn't commission very much,”

explains Lygo. “Unlike, say, BBC3, which would commission 20 times as many

shows, there is more riding on each commission for us so we do think long and

hard about each one.” When the BBC tries to woo teens, adds Lygo, there is a risk

that it can be “a bit sober and po-faced”.

But he also sounds a cautious note, pointing out that Skins, Misfits and

Inbetweeners “almost certainly don't make money for the channel at the

moment”. Online advertising rates are lower and there has been limited success

so far in selling the programmes overseas.

So Lygo says: “We have to be smarter about how we charge people.” He is keen

to introduce ideas such as micro-payments and “next-epping”, explaining: “If you

want to see the next episode early, you can pay.” Then the episode would air for

free a few days or weeks later.

New technology continues to open up astonishing possibilities. Channel 4 recently

commissioned an online TV drama, Brink, made entirely by people who were

recruited via the web.

E4's teenage viewers would expect nothing less.