How Media Producers Define Audiences

How Media Producers Define Audiences

Audience Research
This is a major part of any media producers roll. Different companies are set up to carry out audience research for the media producers, broadcasters and advertisers. These companies carry out the research through surveys, Questioners, interviews and focus groups. These forms of research are all primary research as all the information is collected first hand. The company’s also can use people’s mobile phones and television box to see what people are watching as well as what people are doing or buying on their mobile phone.                         

E.g. Focus groups: Products are normally shown to focus groups of similar product that is already out there to ask them what they would like to see that is new and not in these shows to make them different so that people would watch them. They will also show them trailers of things such as TV shows and movie trailers that the media producers have made so they can get a variety of different opinions on what they could do to improve it. They may also show them a pilot episode to see if it is worth putting it on the air. Also they often show focus groups several different endings in the video or even the same bit several times but shot in a different way just so that they can see which one everyone likes the most.                            

Producers spend a lot of money and time finding out the audience of programmes or media products. They want to know how the audience is made up and how large the specific audience is. Certain websites are used by producers so that they can find out this information as it has been broken down into many different categories. We the public can use these websites for free but when it is for producers as they want to make money they have to pay these websites to get there information as they can get the information in a lot more details. The public can normally just get the figures of how much that certain program has been viewed but producers can really break it down and find out the ages of the house holds that watch the shows and where in the world people are watching it.

Demographics: Demographics is a very traditional and important method when it comes to audience profiling, media producers break down their audience into different categories such as. Age, social class and gender, ethnicity and employment status. Demographics refer to the characteristics of the population. Media producers would use a demographic chart so that they can break down the search for their target audience that they need. The main purpose of this method is to define the adult population greatly by their occupation, the population is then broken down into six groups and they are then labelled in a chart from 'A, B, C1, C2, D, E'

Websites: These are the websites that media producers use to get there information for products such as TV programs and radio shows.

Broadcasters Audience Research Board: - http://www.barb.co.uk/

This is the BABR websites where you can click on the tabs at the top of the page and it will take you diffferent pages in the website that shows you the different viewing figures of hunders of TV channels on certain weeks of certain months it can show you from the top 10 to the top 30. Other tabs can show you what is trending TV show related and also what is new and coming up.

This screen shot is showing you the channels in alphabetical order where you can choose the TV channel, year and month which then show you the top ten shows which had the highest viewings on that certain channel that week. These companies collect this information by looking at the figures of all the TV channels and put all there information finding into this website. They find out what kind of a house hold it is and what channels and shows are mostly watched. They will work closely with different TV providers so that they can find out what has been watched and by whom.

Official body in charge of measuring radio audiences in the UK: - http://www.rajar.co.uk/

This is the home page of RAJAR throughout this website by clicking on the tabs at the you can navigate throughout the website. You can click on things such as about which tells you all about them, listening figures which shows you the different statistics of different radio shows and various other things.

This is the page we will be looking at. This is the listening figures page where you can see from all the radio stations that are registered with this website information about how many people listen to the station and such things as the total hours that radio stations has been listeners and the average number of hours people have listened to the show. To use all of the features that this website allows you to have access to you have to have an account with them which you means you must subscribe so you can see the individual regions on which the station is listened to the most and such things as different demographics e.g. Individuals. This company will also work closely with radio stations so that is will be easier for them to find out how many people listen to which station. Another thing this company does will be surveys and questioners so that they can find what gender and age they are and which station they listen to or listen to the most.

Extra:

When companies want to know about audience figures on the shows they will simply look up the same information on the websites as we can without paying as the public could do. But most large companies such as ITV, Capital FM, Comedy Central, Smooth or MTV etc. they will pay BARB and RAJAR to go into more detail and find out instead of just the figures of any show they can show you the region and such of where the show has been watched or listened to. This is how companies actually use their audience research for themselves. This is how BARB and RAJAR make their money by offering these services to companies. This is how they help companies carry out their audience research so that they can make shows that are similar to ones that are popular at the moment but also different so they are not copying. Companies will always use BARB and RAJAR to get their audience research as they are the two main companies that offer this service. Once companies have their research they will compare it to there shows and this is how they learn if and how they can make it better in anyway if they can. 

ABC (Audit Bureau Circulations) - http://www.abc.org.uk/

The Audit Bureau of Circulation provides information to the magazine and newspaper industries, it also includes directories, leaflets, exhibitions and websites in the range of products that they research. The Society of British Advertisers (ISBA) founded the ABC in 1931; the purpose of this agency is to provide an independent verification of data figures to promote the buying and selling of the advertising space within the UK national newspapers.

Explanations of how audiences are profiled:

·         Socio-Economic Status

·         Psychographics

·         Geodemographics

·         Age

·         Gender

·         Sexual Orientation

·         Regional Identity

·         Mainstream

·         Alternative

·         Niche

Socio-economic status:

Used by media companies as a well-known method of research Socio-Economic status is important in research as media companies use this to find out what economic class that there target audience is in. Upper class, middle class and working class. Upper class is people that are born in to a well of family or very wealthy or even both. Middle class are people that fall in-between upper and working class. These are people that work but are also rather well off. Then there are working classes which are people that have a job and have to work just to survive. When being a producer it is important to know which one or more of these classes that your target audience falls under. This is so you know what to market at them and also how to do it also. E.g. which channel an advert will be put on to will indicate who and what companies are trying to sell and who to. Just like on the children’s channel they will only advertise toys and things for children because they know that children watch it and will be asking their parents for it. Also they will sell sky one and other sky channels will get different advertisements than ITV as it is an extra paid for channel so producers will try and advertise more expensive products on this as people with more money will be the ones that pay for these channels.

Psychographics:

Psychographics are comparable to demographics but psychographics is more to do with the audience’s behavior and personality’s rather than their work class they are in. Demographics tell you what the audience does but then psychographics explains with more detail in what they do and their behavior. This is important to media producers as they can target even more people by adding things in to the product e.g. a TV program. More people may watch a certain show if it has a certain actor or actress more than others. If the show is only shown in one country the producer will check which actor or actors are popular in that county and get them to star in the show so that more people will watch them. The more Research that the producer puts in the more they can find out about people and the more they could put there product that people like to make it more successful.

 

Age and Gender:

Age and gender are some of the key things that are researched by producers because these are some of the biggest keys when presenting your products. E.g. you would not advertise a documentary about One Direction to a 40 year old man. Just as you wouldn’t advertise a new sports car to a 65 year old woman. You need to be careful when choosing what you are going to advertise to what age and gender of person. This is why on the kids channels there are only advertisements for toys because that it all that that age group is interested in. On the baby channels it will advertise toys for the baby but also things for the baby such as cot and baby monitors as it will be the parents that will watch it as the baby will not really know what that stuff actually is.

Sexual orientation:

When producing a media product sexual orientation needs to be thought of so that no-one is offended and so it shows equality. It is key to not offend anyone in your target audience. You need to make sure that people with different sexual orientation need to be included in the media product or production. There are three main classes of sexual orientation which is Bisexual, Heterosexual and Homosexual.

Regional identity:

Regional identity is where someone is from a certain location. E.g. It could refer to a certain area such as ‘north east’ or ‘midlands’ or a country like ‘England’ or USA or even a certain town such as ‘Liverpool’ or London. Coronation Street is used as an example of this as it was the first show that brought regional identity to the front of the public eye.

 

Mainstream:

Main stream is just another way of saying what is popular at the moment on a large scale. It is mainly used online like on social media websites. It can also be used through TV and Radio because of TV shows getting very popular e.g. Breaking Bad. If you are a producer you would want your product to be very popular so that it will reach worldwide.

Alternative:

This type of media is not as popular as mainstream media. Alternative is more for the independent viewers. The platforms that it is used on do not go as far as TV. This platform is really only available in Newspapers, Radio and Online

Niche:

This is more on the small side of media marketing. These are media products that are aimed at a very specific target audience. E.g. Magazines are aimed at very a specific audience, such as photography magazines and boxing magazines. These are just some of the different magazines you can get that are aimed at very specific people there are many more such a tattoo magazines for tattoo enthusiasts, fishing magazines for keen fishers and cycling magazines for keen cyclists.

                                                     

Examples:

Focus Groups: 

A focus group is a form of qualitative and primary research. This is research that is conducted around a table of people sometimes random so that they can get mixed opinions and sometimes of people of a certain target audience so they can get key feedback on whatever they are presenting. The person holding the focus group is the one who has to make sure that it doesn’t get out of hand and that there are no arguments between people because of the mixed feedback that is coming from the group sometimes people do not agree with other people. The person that is holding the group together has the task of also making sure people stick to talking about the product and getting the right information that you need. It is also very time consuming as you have to organise it and make sure people are there.  

Questionnaires:

This is another form a primary research but it is also a type of qualitative research as this can be done several ways E.g. people post them or hand them out on the streets and they can even be e-mailed to you or if you are signed up to certain websites they can ask you to do them. It is a form of qualitative research because it is about the numbers of certain answers about them self they get off people and also what people that are in there target audience. There are a number of disadvantages these are some people may not be entirely honest and people can also put false results, it is time consuming and sometimes people just can’t be bothered doing them.

Face-to face interviews:

Face to face interviews are another form of qualitative because you are getting information about them directly from them. This is also another form of primary research as it is done first hand directly. This can be a good way of collecting data from sometime but it can also be bad if not done correctly. If you are stopping people in the streets they may not want to stop and talk if they do they may not want to give away certain information and may give false info. If it done correctly and has been set up either by yourself or someone else with a certain person that you want information off for such things as a website or magazine. This can be very time consuming which is another disadvantage. Finally you have to make sure not to offend the person you are interviewing and make sure you have the questions ready and know what you are going to say.

Quantitative Research:

This is a method of research used so that media producers and define their audiences quicker. An example of this would be how media producers see TV viewings through websites such as BARB. This helps them if they are creating a TV show so that they can see what is popular at the moment with the highest amount of viewers. Another example of this would be RAJAR this would help radio producers so they can what radio station is popular at the moment and why so that if they had a radio show they could make it better and more people would listen to it if they did sometime similar to what the popular radio station was doing. A disadvantage of this sometimes is that it does not give you results what type of person is watching what shows so this is why it is important to more than one type of research for your audience.

Qualitative Research:

This is more of an open and personal type of research because you can choose how much information about the audience that you want to find out. This requires digging deeper in to people with qualitative research by interviewing them and giving them surveys and questioners, there is always a down side to this and that is that some of the people may not give honest answers and lie. It is important to be very precise with your research if you want to find out key things to do with the audience. This is also an important way of carrying out your research for a media producer to define their audience as this allows them to be very specific with questions.

Primary Research:

Primary research is research conducted by you through things such as surveys, interviews, questionnaires and focus groups. This is good as you will get first-hand information off people so it won’t be out-dated by new information as you have just gotten the newest. Disadvantages to this is that it is very time consuming  and sometimes you may not get fully honest answers because some people just don’t have time to do them so they will just quickly do them of just not do them at all.

Secondary Research:

Secondary research is much easier than primary as it does not take up a lot of your time as it is you just finding information that has already been put out there. People often just look on the internet or in libraries through books for the information that they need. This can have its disadvantages to as the information online may be false or even the information in the book may be out of date. This is why it is good to get a lot of different types of research, so that you have a lot of different information to look over.