What is the balance of realism and drama in particular soaps ?

All 'soaps' have to maintain a high level of realism and drama throughout their shows. The main focus points for the creators is to keep a good balance between the two points. There needs to be a high level of drama happening throughout an episode to keep the audience hooked and to make it interesting. However they need to balance this with the realism. Realism is the way of keeping it as realistic as possible so that audiences can relate to it. Having to much Drama and not enough realism makes a show become unreal and rejects the conventions of a 'soap'

A popular show like Eastenders always keeps a high level of drama and has sometimes over the past been criticised because of its unrealistic approach to modern day live. This includes the 'shooting of Phil' and 'Max being buried alive'. Eastenders tries to keep high action such as the Shooting of Phil after the drama attracted over 19 million viewers and became the biggest soap success. However when Max was buried alive there was a huge negative impact and Eastenders had to apologise to its viewers after many complaints. Eastenders takes place at 8.30pm which is before the 'watershed' and having a character 'drugged and buried alive' was found not suitable by many viewers.

Overall, successful soaps find a good balance and occasionally throw in a high drama event to attract many viewers which can cause a positive or negative effect as proved by Eastenders.