Citing TV Programmes (and films):

There are a few options – and all of them seem viable under the MHRA Style Guide (which is the English Dept’s required house style).

If you go to the Assessment Toolkit on Moodle (English Students Area – or posted into the Assessments Area of your taught units in Moodle), there’s a link under Item 4 to the full MHRA Style Guide. Here’s the link to the Guide:

http://www.mhra.org.uk/Publications/Books/StyleGuide/StyleGuideV3_1.pdf

Pages 3—8 summarise how to do the most commonly needed things – and on p.6 there’s a note of how to cite websites / URLs. For citing TV I suggest:

1. If you have accessed a television programme via a website (for example, Box of Broadcasts) you could cite the programme as if it were an article which you have read online. Citing the URL and the date accessed are the key things, and the style would be as per online articles:

Steve Sohmer, ‘The Lunar Calendar of Shakespeare’s King Lear’,

Early Modern Literary Studies, 5.2 (1999) <http://purl.oclc.org/

emls/05-2/sohmlear.htm> [accessed 28 January 2000] (para. 3

of 24)

2. OR: If you check in the Index at the end of the full MHRA Guide there are entries on TV Programmes: (the area of the guide you are referred to is: 11.2.17). To cite a TV programme you need to state when it was broadcast and on what channel (see below)

3. OR: Alternatively, you could cite the DVD if you have used one (in the same way you would cite a film): The relevant sections are:

11.2.16 Recordings, Films, and Digital Media

….. For films, the reference should include, as a minimum, title, director,

distributor, date, e.g.:

The Grapes of Wrath, dir. by John Ford (20th Century Fox, 1940).

Names of artists may be given after that of the director. First names may

be omitted if not deemed necessary. If a video reference is available, it

should be added at the end.

References to material published on CD or DVD should follow the

format outlined in 11.2.1–11.2.3, but with the addition at the end of the

phrase ‘[on CD]’, ‘[on DVD]’, etc., as appropriate.

11.2.17 Broadcasts

References to television or radio broadcasts should give the title of the

specific programme, if there is one, in single quotation marks, and the

title of the series in italics, together with the date and (if relevant) the

time of transmission. For example:

‘Green Shoots from the Arab Spring’, Analysis, BBC Radio 4, 12 November

2012.

Newsnight, BBC2, 2 November 2012, 10.30pm.