User:D4nnyw14/Hollyoaks draft

Hollyoaks is a British television soap opera, first broadcast on Channel 4 on 23 October 1995.

History
In the 1980s television producer Phil Redmond began receiving suggestions for a serialised television drama that would explore the lives of late-teenage characters. The suggestions came from viewers of Redmond's creation Grange Hill, a school-based drama series. However, Redmond was unable to pursue the idea at the time due to his production commitments with another successful television drama serial, Brookside. In the early 1990s UK television broadcaster Channel 4 sought ideas from independent production companies for a serial to be aimed at a teenage audience. At this point Redmond explored the earlier suggestions made to him, developed the theme and pitched it to the broadcaster as The Teenage Soap. He felt that there was a need for a home-grown British counterpart to the imported serials then being aired by other UK broadcasters and which targeted the teenage audience, such as Home and Away, Neighbours and Beverley Hills 90210. Redmond's plans were selected from the pitches received by Channel 4 and production soon begun. The premise of the serial at its inception was to focus on seven teenagers living in the city of Chester, and in particular to deal with teenage rites of passage. The serial was initially aimed at 16 to 24 year old viewers, since then the target audience has broadened, now aimed at viewers aged up to 35 years old. To reflect the change in target audience the focus of the serial moved from Hollyoaks Community College to the surrounding Hollyoaks Village.

Hollyoaks is filmed at Lime Pictures studios, formerly known as Mersey Television, which is based in Childwall. Lime Pictures is responsible for producing several televised dramas although Hollyoaks is the company's "most important" show.

In 2010, when series producer Paul Marquess began working on the serial he axed fourteen characters as part of Hollyoaks rejuvenation. Marquess went on to introduce three new families Marquess addressed rumours that the serial was in danger of being axed due to decreased ratings, saying: "it is important for Lime Pictures and for Liverpool to keep Hollyoaks as strong as it is. I've had no meetings with Channel 4 about ratings".

International broadcasts
In April 2007, it was announced that the BBC had acquired the show for the United States audience. It was broadcast on BBC America in a nightly time-slot with an omnibus edition on weekends. On 18 October 2010, Australian digital station 7Two began airing episodes that had been screened in the United Kingdom during September 2009. But the channel later dropped the show from their schedule. In late 2012, it was announced that All3Media International had secured a deal with subscription television channel UKTV to air Hollyoaks in Australia and New Zealand from 2013. The show is broadcast in Finland, Sweden, Norway and Turkey.

Storylines
Subjects tackled include: teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, alcoholism, male rape, abortion, bereavement, homosexuality, mental health, anorexia, surrogacy, dyslexia, domestic violence, suicide, gambling addiction, legal highs and young carers.

In March 2000, Hollyoaks became the first soap opera to portray male rape via a post-watershed episode titled "Hollyoaks: Breaking Boundaries". The victim was Luke Morgan (Gary Lucy) and only the scenes before and after the attack were televised. Series producer Jo Hallows told Lucy Miles of the Sunday Mercury that her team had liaised with relevant support groups to correctly depict the issue.

In 2010, Hollyoaks began airing a cervical cancer storyline involving long term character Steph Dean (Carley Stenson). Marquess revealed that the storyline was devised to show "Hollyoaks' ability to bring a sweet and humorous tone to such a tragic story" and to deliver the "message of early detection for cervical cancer" to the young audience of the serial.

Controversy
In March 2000, Hollyoaks aired a storyline featuring male rape shown at 11pm. A MALE rape storyline in teenage soap Hollyoaks was last night slammed by churches and TV watchdogs. National Viewers' and Listeners' Association director John Beyer said the storyline was "a most inappropriate storyline for a programme of this kind, which is watched by young people, and any idea that just because it is being shown at 11pm makes it right is just nonsense". Ann Allen, convener of the Church of Scotland Board of Social Responsibility said: "Rape is a dreadful and traumatic experience, but this is simply trivialising it". A spokesperson for Family and Youth Concern said Hollyoaks was turning "human pain into entertainment" by going ahead with the storyline. However, Keith Greenaway the coordinator of charity Central Birmingham Victim Support, welcomed the decision to screen the storyline saying it would help to get the subject "out in the open" and "show victims it is not something to be ashamed of and it wasn't their fault". A spokesperson for the Independent Television Commission said they would have to review the storyline and see how the issue was treated before they considered taking any action against Mersey TV. When the storyline aired, 14 complaints by viewers were made. The Independent Television Commission dismissed the complaints, saying the scenes were "not unduly graphic" and the correct warnings were screened before the episode aired.

Ratings
In 2000, the show held an average viewership of 4 million and the following year gained more than 1 million. The show later experienced a decline in ratings, only managing an average of 1.5 million during 2009. But their lowest ever Channel 4 ratings (640,000 viewers) were logged on 5 June 2010.

In popular culture
Hollyoaks was included in EE's advertising campaign in which Kevin Bacon plays Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon games with British cultural references.