How to Write a Radio Serial Drama for Social Development- PDF

148 Chapter Ten: Testing the Pilot Programs
Topics in This Chapter
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The importance of pilot programs
The purpose of pilot scripts
Five areas to be tested
The Nine Ps of effective Enter-Educate
programs
The Importance of Pilot Programs
Pilot programs guide the construction of future programs in the same way
that a coastal pilot guides a ship in and out of port. Their purpose is to
ensure that the story ideas and message presentation prepared by the design
team and incorporated into the script are appropriate and likely to be
successful. During pilot tests—which take place before full-time script
writing and production begins—a sample audience listens to pilot programs
created especially for the testing process and then responds to written
questionnaires or participates in focus-group discussions.
Even before formal pilot testing is done, some writers like to try out ideas
on representative members of the audience. This type of testing does not
require the scripts to be recorded on tape. Instead, the trial scripts can be
read aloud to the audience, either by the writers themselves—if they are good
readers—or by actors.
The program manager and the evaluation team decide when, where, and
how to test the pilot programs on a formal basis. While the writers of prosocial
drama are not expected to be experts in evaluation, they should be
present during the tests and should join the evaluation team in interpreting
the results. This lets them see firsthand how well their scripts meet the needs
of the audience and of the project designers.
It is usually necessary to test only three or four programs if the writer
fulfills these three important obligations while writing:
• Becoming well acquainted with the audience;
• Consistently using the Writer's Brief as the foundation for plot and
message development; and
• Structuring the plots, characters, and settings of the serial correctly.
The pilot scripts, however, should not be limited to the first few episodes
in the serial, because the story in these early episodes has not advanced very
far and the message has only just been introduced. Instead, pilot scripts
should be drawn from different parts of the scope and sequence list, for
example, episodes 1, 20, and 35 of a 52-episode serial. Pilot tests also can be