Content Strategies of the “Big Three” TV Channels: Topics, Genres, Formats

This article is the result of a complex study, which was devoted to the research of the content strategies of the “Big Three” TV channels: their topics, genres, formats. Thus, the authors' aim was to formulate the content strategies of the main universal all-Russian TV channels (Channel One Russia, Russia 1, NTV) in terms of their thematic and genre priorities. The relevance of the study is determined by the leading position of TV viewing in the whole structure of the Russian media consumption, and the issues (topics) and genres are the main characteristics of the TV content; the choice of channels is determined by their top positions in the Russian broadcasting rating. The authors undertook the TV and radio programs' monitoring during the period of 2-8 April 2018; 448 casts (programs) were analyzed. All content was typologized from the point of view of journalists' participation in its production, and only journalistic content was further analyzed, since the study in general was aimed to improve the professional training of TV journalists. The following features of the content strategy of the channels under study were discovered: information broadcasting had the largest share among all types of the aired content, political and social journalism programs had the second biggest share, and all the three channels had consumer-oriented programs in their broadcast. NTV presented more legal and cognitive programs than its competitors while Channel One Russia had more educational programs; the content of Russia 1 was the least thematically diverse. While planning their programs' schedule, all three TV channels turn to almost identical genres: programs on political and social issues are created in the genre of conversation or discussion; consumer and cognitive content is represented by multigenre programs in a magazine format; games and quiz shows are demonstrated in the entertainment segment of these channels. The programs' subjects and genres during weekdays are also quite identical for all TV channels: basically, it is the content of information broadcasting, political and social journalism in the genres of interviews, conversations and discussions, and spoken style programs (talk shows) prevail. However, the broadcast of Channel One Russia is more diverse, including a wide range of consumer and entertainment shows, quiz shows, games, documentaries and movies. The thematic programming of all three TV channels on Saturday and Sunday is more diverse regarding to both their own weekday broadcasting schedule and that of the competing channels. The genre structure of the weekend broadcast schedule is much more diverse, but to the greatest extent this feature is presented on NTV: there are programs of all kinds of topics and genres, while entertainment content prevails. A significant proportion of Channel One Russia and Russia 1 aired casts during the weekend is non-journalistic (documentary) content.

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