Critical Approaches - How Media Producers Define Audiences - Assignment 1

Critical Approaches - How Media Producers Define Audiences Assignment 1 

Our world is filled to the brim with media, whether it's cooking shows, a live football match or the latest Hollywood blockbuster. The classic saying "Time is money" is vital in the world of media as the quicker you can get something made and the larger the consumer audience you draw the higher the profit. In order to get the maximum yield from the consumer market. Companies and producers will cleverly target products towards a select audience, one they think will enjoy and purchase. This is known as the target audience. In this report we will not only look at the importance of target audience but how an audience is profiled from the research producers carry out. 

The Importance of Target Audience

Like we saw in the introduction time is money, which is one of the vital factors of a target audience. Once you know who your product is for you can begin to aim all the different media creation process towards the audience. This will range from not only the content, but the way in which it is advertised. Marketing will usually be the way in which the audience is drawn in as all the trailers, posters and merchandise are specially designed to appeal to the niche audience. For instance if a producer knows that their target audience is of boys 5-10 who lives in the UK (other data such as income, sexual orientation aren't vital for this age range) they won't be advertising the product to be filled with sexual references, Americanisms, drugs and alcohol. All the content and advertising will be around the fact that they are a young male led audience that live in the UK. This doesn't mean the media content has to be set in the same country, it means that the content will have to have the power to maintain the interest of a UK audience. 

Finding your target audience is also a vital part of pre production. As this information is used throughout the creative process. This then makes a product very easy to market a you know where the product is going, a rough idea of when its going to be released and you know why your making your product in the style that you are. Not only giving your work purpose but also making sure there is a level of quality in the final piece. If this isn't done correctly or to a high standard then the product could fail to maintain a certain appeal. 

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For instance take the TV show Gotham, which follows the story of how Gotham grew before the time of Batman.The cast also features a lot of new actors that haven't had a massive career yet (par from Jada Pinkett Smith) A lot of reviews for the first season where based around the idea that the show hadn't found itself and was balancing a lot of different ideas which weren't all suited towards the target audience. Given that Batman is a huge franchise which is beloved to many, the main target audience would be centered around the existing fan base. But the existing fan base wasn't happy from the get go as they thought it would never work, a debate which still goes on today. Although the show focused on really good character development, due to the struggle in having a focused style of production target audiences started to drop which means that the production would be losing  more and more profit each week. 

Despite the drop, the show still managed to get an extended season up to a whole 22 episodes and is currently in its second season. Reviews range from fans really enjoying the show to critics pointing out how its production is strong but faces strong problems in maintaining its style, to which could turn off the target audience:

"While other comic book shows try to replicate the fantasy of the source material at every level, Gotham tries to walk a thin line between realism and fantasy. It seems to work--for now, at least. But you have to wonder about the challenges the series will face once those larvae become full-fledged, whackadoodle villains. Trying to have it both ways is courageous, but courage doesn’t guarantee success." ;

As you can see in this review, they acknowledge the fact that the show works for now but it could struggle down the line when they run out of content that is focused on the target audience. Not only putting doubt into the production but also predicting that one day its going to take a turn for the worse. 

"I thought that a lack of the Bruce Wayne/Batman character would ruin it, but "Gotham" proved me wrong thanks to its interesting prequel events, slew of well known actors and pot of memorable characters."

Yet a review from the audience is quite positive and they think it works. Which highlights a very key area that not everyone in the target audience is going to love the product. The idea of a target audience is to draw in a large selection of people using factors such as: age, gender, geolocation, demographics, physcographics and sexual orientation. If you were going to try and make a product to suit everyone it would be impossible. Which is why a target audience is important if you can make a product suit to a "stereotype audience" then your more likely to make more of a profit. 

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"how in the hell are you introducing robin already? robin is nowhere near the same age as batman. they need to take this garbage off of the air. this will be my last comment on this show because i cannot watch it any longer. i was only watching it because of Jada Pinkett-Smith, but i can no longer do it. i would rather rip my own eyes out of my head and cut of my ears that watch this garbage any more."

Again this is proven in another consumer review as they don't like the way the show is going, which is fair enough as the target audience may love the first few episodes but may drop after a while. Which could be that its not for them ,or the show is changing style too much and has the effect of losing the audiences attention. But all this can be taken into the account of the producers as the show is getting a second season and could aim to suit it more to their target audience by fixing mistakes from the first season. 

The key thing to take away is the fact that it can be very difficult maintaining an audience and the effects of this can lead to various outcomes. But we can also learn that without keeping a target audience in mind you can easily get lost in your own production which means that the production company could love the final product but its a commercial disappointment. This way by keeping a close focus on who your target audience is you can make a product that benefits both the consumer and the producer. Resulting in the producer gaining more money and the consumer coming away with a beneficial product. But more importantly without the idea of the target audience you are never going to draw in an audience through marketing, as you don't know who to aim it at. Once you do then the world is your metaphorical oyster and you can work on methods to draw in a larger audience using specialized techniques. For instance you could draw in a select part of the audience with one trailer for a product and then when you release the TV spots you can then adapt it to keep the audience from the first trailer and draw in more and more people. But now we have looked at the importance, lets see how they use their findings to not only turn it into data but how they put it into practice by looking at examples.  

Using the Knowledge of who your Target Audience is:

How can you turn all the data you get from your research (more on how they research into audiences later on) into audiences? One way is to profile your audience which we will explain later. Another is to turn it into a visual representation using facts and figures in graphs which in turn can be used in profiling later on in the process. 

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Say we were conducting research into what web browsers males between the age of 15 - 25 are using. From this 3D pie chart (although it may not be the finest chart) you can see the majority use google. This could be an important factor later on in the marketing of a product as you could chose to put adverts relating to audience on the top 3 browsers. This way you can focus more money on adverts on these platforms as your audience is their, there is no point in in advertising everywhere as you could be throwing money away. More importantly if you didn't know who your audience was you couldn't create this chart and you wouldn't know who and were to target. The use of visuals also make it easy for anyone to come and look at the chart to tell you which is the leading web browser. You can then look at the numbers after seeing the colors to confirm the final statistic. 

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Graphs can also be used in the shape of 2D bar graphs. Although this is a good example to see were to market it product, it lacks the information of how many people were involved and who they were in the research. But this graph highlights the fact that the target audience will have lots and lots of interests. Yet the main factor is that they spend they money mainly in music. So if you want to create a product for this group of people the way to get more of their money is to create a musical product to their liking as its one of the audiences big interests and is the main cash flow. Again, the repeated strain is that without a target audience you cannot set up a business model. As you have no idea what your aiming the product at until the target audience research is done. And with the final conclusion of this graph you can then go on to break down the subject even more, how much do you spend on music? What type of music? Is it a single or an album? Where do they buy it from? You could also view this graph in the way of if they spend lots of money on music could you link a song to product. 

This is known as synergy,the  literal meaning of synergy is:" the interaction or cooperation of two or more organisations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects." Synergy in media terms means linking two areas of the media together. In this case one of the areas will defiantly be the song/ music industry and the second area is often film franchises. By linking two areas together, it allows for both products to be promoted. So for example  a music video is released using a song from a recent movie. If the audience enjoyed the movie, then they are more than likely to enjoy the songs that go with it. In order to recapture the movie magic, the audience would then go and watch the music video and vice versa.

 Another really good example of synergy is the song "You know my name" which was the lead song for the James Bond movie "Casino Royale".

Whats really iconic about his music video is that it is creating a synergy with a really well known franchise "James Bond" which at this point was on its 21st film. Like the previous example, there are lots of clips from the film , although there are lots more inter-cuts in this music video. It also features the artist, Chris Cornell in scenes as if it belonged in the movie. It also shows the artists performance which allows the music video to show of the artists talent whilst promoting the movie as well. This is done by having lots of close ups of the actor singing in the mic towards the end of the music video, along with him playing the guitar in the start.

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Not only is the link between the two heavily referenced in the music video. A cross promotion is also involved on the image released along side the single. In the film "Casino Royale" the soundtrack is used in the opening title sequence. Because the song is at the start of the film and is in the title sequence it makes the song easy to remember, as we generally remember the start and finish of a film.  

Whats special about this, is that the opening is very surreal and gets people talking. In the opening we see an animated sequence that features guns shooting out the different suits from a pack of cards. We also see the suits being shot into people, with the result of them turning into hearts and disintegrating. This is also done with people physically fighting and instead of turning into hearts, they turn into diamonds. In with the mix of animation, we also see a physically form of "James Bond" portrayed by Daniel Craig, and the Bond girl who appears after a cross-hair goes over a queen which is also from a pack of cards. Of course the music carries the title credits through, so when the audience thinks of the crazy opening they will relate it to "You know my name".

But lets move back onto the topic of representing data using graphs and figures and how producers will then use this to create products. 

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Producers can also turn the information into bar graphs so they can compare various different factors next to each other. This time they are looking at the income of African Americans. The blue represents all African Americans that have under 50K income and the green is all those over 50K. Lastly, yellow is all those earning 18+. From this a producer could learn that a vast majority watch TV when they go online. This can come in extremely useful because they can then put up on online advertisements on the TV programmes they watch. To learn if more about the audience they could do research into what platform they watch TV, I.E Youtube, BBC Iplayer, ITV player and Netflix to name a few. They also know that the least popular thing to do when going online is reading the news and magazines so they can avoid targeting the audience there. To get a majority you really want to focus on TV and maybe radio and mail; as they are the next closest thing. As you can't really target other activities at the moment as you don't know what they are.  

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This time there is a graph for an existing product, the product of google+.

They already have a target audience in mind, but when they update their research they may find they have a different audience altogether. Other media products could do this, for instance all those that started to watch a TV show, at the start you could have a different audience by the end so updates may need to be made. From this graph you can learn that the majority of people that use Goggle+ are aged between 25-34 at 38.4% and the minority is the over 55's at 12.2%. The graph then also goes on to explore the income of those involved, the income for the average is $60,000 - $99,999. This can be used by Google + to understand how they can appeal there website to more users. And suit it even more to the younger generation.

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You don't always need to show the data in a visual form, you can use traditional methods such as tables to show the figures.  This table shows the % of internet users who use various different social media websites. There is also a description saying who is especially interested in this product, although it doesn't seem to have any data to back it up. If there was a set audience then you could easily start to make comparisons. So you can only learn that the most popular social media site is Facebook. If you had more information who was surveyed, then you could begin to understand where your target audience is. 

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Last of all data can be used in line graphs, very similarly to bar graphs to compare data. This time the different colored lines represent the various data. This data is looking at Africa's social media over the year in quarterly chunks. You can also see the interest in %. From this you can see that Facebook was a steady rise from 20% in Q1 in 2013 and reached its peak in Q4 of 2013, whilst Yahoo was on a rapid decline until after a year when it begin to take over Facebook after its decline back to 20% at the end of Q2 2014. Other than those two there isn't a lot of other social media that is popular in Africa. As Google is 3rd favorite. This can come in useful if you aim to target your audience using Social Media in Africa as you know which sites are the most popular. 

Age of Ultron

Finally for this section lets take a look at how producers use this information when they come to draw in an audience. The first example is from the film Age of Ultron.

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The first example comes from the media giant Marvel. Marvel cleverly designs its products to not only perfectly target the audience but to also draw in others. In this case the target audience for Age of Ultron is both male and females from the ages of 8-25 world wide.Yes, others may be interested in the film such as long time Marvel fans. But the money they can make mainly comes from the younger ages, but in order to go to see the film and adult will go with them. Doubling the profit. They also make tonnes off money of the merchandise which gets sold in various retailers all over the world. 

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If we look at the poster you can see how it appeals to both male and females. Above is a poster from the solo leads (one was done for every character) in order to appeal to the male audience they make Scarlet Johannson look more attractive, by defining her body shape and adding more color and changes to her hair. Which not only draws in the males of the audience, but also the women as they take inspiration from the character and want to look and be like her. The use of bright colors and the various looks from the different characters also have the same effect which makes the audience want to go see the film. Because Marvel have done their research into who watches their products they can easily market their product. 

Fast and Furious 7 

Secondly, lets take a look at the audience for the Fast and Furious franchise and how they appeal their marketing to suit this. The audience for the FF franchise is male led, between the ages of 12-25 on a world wide scale. This is because of the films constant use of fast car races and chases, the constant sex appeal (women in bikinis cheering on the men) and action. Other factors such as the celebrity cameos (Rita Ora in FF6) and the songs wrote to match the films also help maintain that audience. Again, because this is a blockbuster film it also has a wide appeal and will have existing fans from the other 6 films. Yet the target audience is used to draw in the most money. All of the above can be seen in the trailer, which is exactly what companies will do. They will find their target audience through extensive research, test the products with the public and then change their ideas so the final idea will be ready for the public and the target audience.

The Martian

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Lastly, The Martian is an upcoming Sci Fi - Action Thriller which has been directed by Ridley Scott. The film is an adaption of the original novel "The Martian" by Andy Weir. The book was first brought out for free online, until Amazon approached Weir to turn the series of blog posts into a novel to sell online. Attached to this deal was the request to make the book into an audio book, which would be distributed via audible. The audio book is on the top recommendation list of audible and can be downloaded for free when first signing up to audible.

The novel follows Mark Watney, a since stranded astronaut after a storm on the surface of Mars lead the crew to presume he was dead. In order to survive Watney has to utilize his resources, during this NASA prepares to launch a rescue mission. But can Watney's wit and NASA's tech get him home?

The target audience for the Martian can be looked at in lots of different aspects. For a start there is the target for the original fans of the novel, as it has managed to reach critical acclaim with not only fans but NASA themselves, as they gave their approval for the films production. There is also a strong fan base which is evident during a recent Reddit AMA (Ask me anything) with the author. 

The audience for the book ranges from late teens - older ages. As Weir takes the genre of Science Fiction and widens the appeal to everyone through genuinely funny and artistic writing. Because of this it also appeals to both genders, although it is seen an men are more towards the science sectors, yet again because of the writing Weir leaves a compelling story wide open for the audience. Yet, it isn't for a younger audience as although they may find the story interesting there is strong language throughout. Which isn't suitable for a younger audience. Lastly, there isn't really a geographic restriction/ ethic and lifestyle choices to the audience as the book is available via the internet so anyone can pick it up. It does have strong links to the country of America, as it is a NASA mission.

With NASA being a leading company in the exploration in space. Which will draw in the older side of the audience as the Space Race between Russian and America will have played a key role in their childhood/growing up. As the moon landing happened in 1969. With Neil Armstrong being the first man on the moon, alongside Buzz Aldrin. Whilst Micheal Collins stayed inside the Moon Lander. So to finalize the audience for the book is late teens - elder ages (15-60) of both genders, who are not restricted by location and are part of any belief/have any sexual orientation.

The reason I did the book first, was because this audience is also strong to what the film does. Yet the film goes a bit further to draw in an audience. Alongside the established audience/audience of a similar interest, other factors are:

• A strong cast, the film consists of: 

Matt Damon as Mark Watney
Jessica Chastain as Melissa Lewis
Kristen Wiig as Annie Montrose
Jeff Daniels as Teddy Sanders
Michael Peña as Rick Martinez
Kate Mara as Beth Johanssen
Sean Bean as Mitch Henderson

Sebastian Stan as Chris Beck

Aksel Hennie as Alex Vogel
Chiwetel Ejiofor as Vincent Kapoor
Donald Glover as Rich Purnell
Benedict Wong
Mackenzie Davis as Mindy Park
Naomi Scott
Lili Bordán
Nick Mohammed

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With Matt Damon being the lead it is bound to draw in fans of his work. As he has been known for similar strong roles to which received a positive reaction. As in the Bourne Trilogy, Damon is often alone trying to figure out whats going on and how he's going to survive which matches the action genre in both films. Damon also recently starred in the film Interstellar. Which saw him play the role of a mad astronaut who was abandoned on a life less planet. Although his role was a minor one, it will be interesting to see how he plays the role of a witty, cocky and clever Botanist. Other actors such as Jeff Daniels (Dumb and Dumber - Newsroom), Kate Mara (House of Cards -Fantastic Four), Sean Bean (Known for dying in everything he starred in - Game of Thrones - Lord of the Rings - etc...) and many more. 

Finally there is a target audience for the fans of the director Ridley Scott, as he has a history with strong Sci Fi films such as: Alien and Prometheus. He has also had a good commercial success with other films such as  Thelma and Louise, Legend (Fantasy and Adventure film from the 80,s, not the Kray twins) and Exodus Gods and Kings to name a few. Because he has a following due to his directing style, it is likely to draw in a larger audience. 

How Target Audiences are Profiled 

Target audience profile is a very important step in researching your target audience as it acts as a summary of all your findings. Which means that you get a more concentrated view of who your audience as you know a lot more detail about them and then you can treat them as a stereotype when creating your product. You can set out the profile of the audience in various ways, some people chose to do it visually others may wish to create a bullet pointed list. When profiling we look at the following areas:

Socio-economic status:

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In simple terms the soci-economic status is a way to measure the wealth of an audience. This way they can match the branding towards the correct class. Traditionally you have three classes: working class, middle class and upper class. Upper class is the highest class, with those having the most wealth. Middle class is the middle ground, not the low paying job or the high paying jobs but the middle ground. For instance say you were making a documentary on Rolls Royce, you would make your target audience the upper classes as they are more likely to use and purchase that products. Yes the other classes may inspire to own a Rolls Royce but its more interesting to those who will actually use those products. This status isn't often taken into account as BARB estimates that 26.8 million households (roughly 97% of the UK) own a TV. So when making content for the TV you are looking to appeal to 97% of the UK. Adverts would be the best place to apply this status as an advert about Pay Day loans wouldn't appeal to the upper classes but it may for the working class.

The best way to refer to the class system is by the ABC1 which measures and classifies: income and earnings levels. Which in turn are used to analyse an audience for research.  A non profit commercial company called National Readership Survey (NRS) will analyse and estimate the number of British people reading magazines and newspapers. The ABC1 system they set up is often used as the generic reference as follows it goes:

Social Grade Social Status Occupation
A upper middle class higher managerial, administrative or professional
B middle class intermediate managerial, administrative or professional
C1 lower middle class supervisory or clerical, junior managerial, administrative or professional
C2 skilled working class skilled manual workers
D working class semi and unskilled manual workers
E those at lowest level of subsistence state pensioners or widows (no other earner), casual or lowest grade workers

For instance, you want to target an  advert to men between the ages of 16-34 who watch TV. According to BARB (More about this later on) you can learn that this target audience watches 2 h 41 min of linear TV (TV being streamed at the current time,in a row and not on demand) 2 hours of this is commercial TV (Out to make money, channels like Sky, ITV and Channel 4 are all commercial which use adverts for funding) 94.1% watched the TV on the day of live broadcast but the general time frame for viewing was hard to judge. They also spend more time watching TV whilst using other devices (Tablets, phones and games consoles). So from the data you can learn that the best place to target your audience is in adverts, as since they watch TV one after another and its the time of broadcast; commercial channels will show adverts. So you could do the target audience a favor and make a really appealing piece of content to not only keep them entertaining but for you as a producer to gain a greater audience for your product. You can also compare this data to:

Adults

Adults watch an average of 4 hours and 2mins of linear TV a day, 2 hours and 38mins of this is commercial TV The majority of adults’ viewing is done at the time of broadcast, 88.2% of their viewing to be precise! Of the viewing that is time-shifted, 5.6 % of their total TV content is watched on the same day as live (VOSDAL) Adults are most likely to consume Video on Demand (VoD) on a Sunday and Monday

ABC1 Adults

ABC1 Adults watch 3 hours and 20mins of linear TV a day, 2 hours and 1mins of this is commercial TV Upmarket adults watched 92.8% of their TV viewing on the same day as live with 86.1% of this being a the same the time of broadcast TV viewing is highest from Sunday through to Tuesday VoD viewing is highest from Friday through to Tuesday with a dip in viewing on Wednesday and Thursdays.

C2DE Men

C2DE Men watch 4 hours and 29 mins of linear TV a day, 3 hours and 2 mins of this is commercial TV This audience group spends less time than ABC1 Men multi-screening Men in this social demographic split their TV viewing very evenly throughout the whole week As a group they also spend less time consuming TV content through VoD than upmarket adults. Instead, they watch a higher percentage of their TV live at the time of broadcast (90.6%) with 95.1% viewing on the same day as live

Note how you can see that working adults are classified using the ABC1 system, in this case it allows you to compare it against those who are trained and in work and those how are not. So you know how you can change your ways of appealing to the select audience. In this case you can see that C2D2 watches more content so you easily put on appeals during the day when they are watching it the most. Whereas you are looking at weekends to for the ABC1 adults as during the week they are busy working. As the other is unemployed and stay at home, meaning there is more of a chance to watch greater amounts of TV. Which in proof shows the importance of the system.

Psychographics:

Psychographics is all about the mindset of the audience. What they think, what are their habits, what values do they have and what are their hobbies? Combine this with demographics and you get a detailed breakdown of the average life your audience. For instance a demographic would include: gender, age, marital status and income. Where as for psychographics you might have the following information: thoughts on appearance, lifestyle, hobbies, what they find fulfillment in and what they value. Which could be something such as valuing time between friends. When it comes to this section of profiling we often stereotype people into various sections:

• Mainstreamers - Seek security, tend to domestic, conventional, sentimentalist, follow trends and often go for the big named brands. This is often the larger group and will often be the bigger media brands that aim content towards a mainstream. For more on mainstreaming, see section below which contains full examples.  

• Apsirers: Will seek status, excessively concerned about the acquisition of money, acquisitive, orientated to image and appearance. Typically younger people.  For instance in this advert below, they show off expensive designer handmade shoes. Because they are expensive, they would be bought to to show off to others rather than actually being used as intended.  

Again if we look at this advert for Apple, its shows off the features that can be used to impress people. With all the smart phones out their, the Iphone is normally the trendiest. So in order to keep up with the times they will target these products towards aspirers. Also included in the advert is lots of clips of people using the Iphone, with one in particular being a rich business man. Which is exactly what these type of people aim to be. Proving how producers can cleverly target an audience using their mindset. 

• Succeeders: Seek control, strong goals, confidence, work ethic and organisation. They often reach higher management and will stride to be professional. The products they buy will often be more of a high quality. For instance, take this advert of Lacoste: 

Lacoste is a big brand that is aimed towards the wealthy. Because it is a high product brand this group tends to care more about the brand and the image so everything from the advertising to the product needs to look professional. This group is likely to stay away from the own brand supermarket products for example as their packing is very basic and made in a big batch so its not of a high quality this group would expect.

• Resigned: They seek survival, are often very rigid and have authoritarian values. They are interested in past and tradition, which is why this group is generally the older generation. Safety is often a key factor and is emphasized through the branding of products. Like the name, this group is often retired and look for familiarity and economy in brands. Which in this case means that this group will often go for family friendly products. Therefore, products that express safety are really key to appealing to this group: 

Take this video from a Think! Safety campaign. Not only is this aimed at people to wear more seat belts but older people will often see this and express it to their families as they are concerned about safety overall. It also adds to the sense of familiarity as seat belts have been around for ages. So by using a familiar product  and show the dangers and the safety points you can easily get a group to be interested in the product. 

• Explorers: Seek discovery, often have lots of energy, individualism and experience. They value the difference and the sense of adventure. This is typically a younger audience but the use of marketing can bring out the adventuring side of everyone.

For instance take this advert for a Vauxhall Corsa. Not only does it contain a lot of fast cuts to keep up with the pace, but it shows all the various adventures you can get up to with the car. Whether it be a trip abroad, racing round the country roads, putting in you own sound system or even getting married. It shows the perfect balance of family. As there is something for every part of your life. 

• Strugglers often seek escape as they feel they are trapped in a loop.They will often be organised and have the sub-conscious of being alienated. They will have a few resources beyond physical and mental skill. They often buy alcohol, junk food and lottery tickets. They are often on the lower side of the demographics. For instance, money saving or loan adverts will typically appeal to this audience: 

This is due to the fact that within 30 seconds an advert has appearing out of nowhere and offered to help you and your problems in a quick and simple manner. Because this group may be desperate they will often feel the need to comply. Yet the older and wide demographics realize that these services are a con and will often cost you even more in repayments. 

• Reformers: The last of the groups, is where they seek enlightenment, freedom of restrictions and feel the need for growth as an individual. They have a social awareness and have a good sense of independent judgement. They have a good taste but are anti-materialistic. They will often have a high level of education.  This is often related to middle class as they aren't up spending tonnes of money on high quality fast products, but they are in the middle range. Take the company Volvo:

Whilst the Aspirers are aiming for  super cars and the best brand products. This group will often go for the well made products. Volvo has a mid range level of cost in the car world. It is in the same range as Ford, Kia and Toyota. Through marketing they manage to show the quality of the products as in this particular advert a guy is standing between two Volvo trucks and he manages to maintain his balance. 

Geodemographics - Regional Identity:

Geodemographics and regional identity are two of the same thing. Regional identity is where in the world the audience is, geodemographics then adds all the important information such as income, research data, etc... This is so a producer can get specific information about a region, small town, county, country, town or city. This is so they know exactly who to target the product at. This will then be combined with the other pieces of data to form a profile. The best way to analyse the geodemographics is to look at a couple of examples. For these examples, it is hard to get them from media companies. But in this case you can normally look at graphics that already exist and then aim a product towards it.

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This geodemographic explores the expenditure towards charities in the UK. This can be used by media companies to target specific regions in order to increase the appeal of charities but in order to raise funds overall. From this you can see that Northern Ireland  has the lowest rate as a country. Companies such as Dogs Trust and WWF could create new campaigns. They can they look deeper into this with the pyschographics to see what they would like in a charity and what would make them donate. You could also note to reduce marketing in the really busy and saturated towns/cities and then target the yellow and light orange towns. 

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This time lets look at the USA. This graphic looks at the overall unemployment rate for the month of June 2015. Companies can then look at the regions that have the highest unemployment rate to find new staff. This can be done by creating a series of media products: TV adverts, Social Media Campaigns and leaflets. Now that they have the content, they would then go deeper into these locations using a profile to see how they would make the style more appeal-able to the unemployed. The darker red zones of the graphic are those in the 6.1-7.4% of the unemployed. Yet the graph is lacking population numbers of the USA and doesn't state how many are actually in each state. So the percentages could be out of proportion compared to each other as 5% of New York is different to 8% of Washington.

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Now lets move onto some films that use the information of geodemographics to perfectly target their audience. For instance Attack the Block is a Sci Fi - Comedy set in a council estate in South London. So not only is the film being targeted at the UK, it is using the the location of the Capital. Which is the main geographic for the target audience. This then means they have to represent the South of London in a respectful and correct manner, but in a way that is going to appeal to the target audience. For instance in the film the use of cockney slang and accent is used throughout, the idea of street gangs is used to fight aliens instead of showing the negatives and the clothing they wear is a true representation of the area. Tracksuits, trainers and bicycles are often seen throughout alongside the council flats in the background. If they created a film in the South London of the current day and everyone was in suits, speaking french whilst driving around in a Mega bus. It sets a mixed message and wouldn't help target the audience it wants to gain. 

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Although, you don't have to aim for just one country when making a media product. For instance you could aim a film to be distributed world wide. However, this can cause problems if it is a box office failure as you are relying on multi countries all to find an interest. This was the case for the 5th Terminator film: Terminator Genisys.  Worldwide the product wasn't being commercially accepted and was heading towards a loss at the box office. Yet China saved the film as the country and gained $82.8 million in the 8 day run, which was the same as the release did in the entire run in the USA. Which gained $89.4 million overall. Which means that if you are aiming a product at the worldwide market, make sure it appeals to most if not every mainstream audience of those countries, as you may end up relying on the Chinese film market to save you.

Demographics 

Demographics is the study of population based on a series of factors. These factors allow the producers to see exactly who their audience is. This summary can then be profiled in a series of ways as we will see later on. The factors included in demographics are age, race, sex, economic status, level of education and income section. For this section we will be looking at the 3 key details of demographics: Age, gender and sexual orientation. Demographics is displayed in a sentence. For instance I could say my target audience is 15 year old males, who are British, don't earn any or much money who are in education. This then lets the producer see who they are making the product for, as 15 year old males are different all over the world. 15 year old Americans will relate to different topics compare to a British teenager. So demographics is vital to the production of any product as it sets the focus for its audience. It is also important to note that people are stereotyped when it comes to demographics as its easy to target towards. As if you get too deep into an audience it may become niche. Which comes with its own advantages/disadvantages.

Age:

Age is as simple as how old the audience is. 7 year olds have a different mind set and thinking process to products compared to a 35 year old. So by noting who the target age is you know what level of maturity to set your product. Age is also important from a legal point as if you aim to make a product for a child then the standards are very different. Say you are making a film aimed at an audience 6-8 years old you cannot include drug references, sex, violence, strong language or any disturbing scenes. Which effects the overall production. Yet if you know your audience straight away you know to avoid these. It also means that your marketing can be aimed directly at your age range. To best explore this lets compare two different trailers and how they are aimed differently:

  Pan V Crimson Peak

Straight away you can tell this product is aimed towards children, as it is based off the fairy tale Peter Pan. This can be seen in the floating ships, bright colours of Neverland. The costume style and the way it's shots reflect the idea of a musical. Which younger people enjoy. The audience can also look up to the film and relate to Peter Pan as he is a similar age to those who will be watching. As the audience for this film is Children 6-13 of both genders. It also features other aspects of fairy tales such as pirates, mermaids and other types of creatures. Yet now if we compare it to Crimson Peak:

Which has a target audience for both male and females aged 15-25. As the horror genre is very unique. The period aspect of the film draws in the females where as the creatures and gore appeals to the male side of the audience. The fact that the film is rated 15 means you can expect sex, gore and blood which appeals to an older and maturer audience. Which is why the two are completely different, as in Pan you see the happy side of things and any violence is slapstick. Whereas if you put blood and gore in Pan you would no longer be targeting it for children as it is unsuitable. 

Gender:
Much like age, gender is very important as male and females have very different mind sets. Again this section is stereotyped to draw in a larger target audience. Males are known to be more into action and fast paced productions. I.E muscle cars, gun fights and explosions. Whereas, females are stereotyped to be more delicate and into things such as musicals, dramas, rom coms, romance and less gory content. Although everyone is different, everyone is stereotyped when it comes to audiences. Again lets compare two different products in order to get a better understanding.

Orange is the New Black draws in the main audience of women, as it follows a dramatized life in an American women's prison. The age rating ranges from 18-40 as it has a wide appeal. Yet it is harder for males to get into as they cannot sympathize with the content. The dialogue and content of the show also revolves women, which males may find interesting but males will lose interest as the topics they talk about will not apply to them as they may not fully understand the meaning. Yet if you compare this to Fast and Furious 6:

Compared to the drama of OITNB which is constructed in a linear and structured way and allows a slow burn which suits the female brain. Yet in Fast and Furious the whole film is full of action, fast action cuts, sex appeal of women in bikinis, and fast car driving. Which is all what appeals to males, as males are stereotyped to be amazed by visual spectacles rather than a well told story. As the pacing keeps up with the mind set of the audience, as it constantly cuts to something new and if the action isn't keeping up then the music cuts in and the shots are cut to the beat. 

Sexual Orientation:
Last of all, they look at sexual orientation. As straights, bisexuals and gays all have different tastes. When it comes to research this can be used to get stats of who is watching what. As if you have an audience that is strongly LBGT and you insult them through the use of dialogue and characters then not only are you breaking the equality act then you are also offending your target audience. So it is important to make sure you content is suitable as you don't want to offend your audience no matter if its about race, religion or sexual orientation. For instance films can be targeted towards certain orientations for instance the film Pride does this:

As the whole films shows the movement of pride in a Welsh down during the closure of the mines in Thatchers political run. It does it in a way that truly shows how human everyone is no matter the orientation. As the research has been done really well to create a film that not only creates pride in itself but it is accepted by all. But mainly its used to show that LBGT should not be ignored and that they deserve the respect they should have. Which has been a tricky root in recent times as not everyone is open to it. Yet this film showed no prejudice. Like we saw earlier with Orange is the New Black, they also focus on the how orientation comes into place in a girls prison and shows straight people outside and inside the prison but also how women turn in prison when they develop a need. This doesn't mean you need to be a lesbian to watch the show but to be open to all orientations. End of demographics.

Mainstream:

Mainstream means what is popular with the majority of a population. This means the content is normally wide enough that anyone could come along and find it entertaining. This is also known as the stereotype so when producers make content they will make it in the eyes of what they believe they want. Big companies such as Warner Brothers, Paramount, Universal will all do this by looking at whats popular and will make big blockbuster hits. Which may not be the best films, but they are films that get a mass following. And a mass following means a bigger cash reward. So when they come to profile an audience they need to write a summary from their findings. What did the mass majority enjoy? One of the reasons the constant need for re doing older films (remaking) and adding more and more sequels to franchises is that big media companies see that the mainstream population will go and see them. And if the mainstream keep watching then the big companies will keep making. Creating the ever revolving wheel of money making.

Take Mission Impossible for instance, it has a wide appeal from both genders *(Although leaning more towards men) from the ages of 12-49, any where in the world of any religion etc... The film itself follows the story of Ethan Hunt a rogue agent on the run as the Syndicate attempt to shut down the IMF (Impossible Mission Force)

This is because the film has something for everyone, Tom Cruiz as the eye candy for the female audience, the action, explosions and thrill for the males and the overall idea of being a spy in these "impossible situations" one of the reasons the films keep being made is not only so they can top their-selves, as the quality increases with each film, but because they earn the big money. As it earned $194,863,486 worldwide which is half of Iron Man 3's rake but they are two different products and still means a lot of money for a film company. Also notice how the action sequences you see in the trailer are of those you would see in a typical blockbuster. 

As the audience know that these scenes sell with the current audience. There is also lots of quick cuts to keep the audience on edge as things keep rapidly changing. The music used is also very memorable and is used in all the films and marketing. Which as soon as an audience hears, will instantly make the connect and look forward to the next film in the franchise. 

Now that we have looked at a franchise that is still going, lets take a look at a film that began the reboot of a classic franchise - "Jurassic World" :

Because the original films did so well. The big film production companies see this as an opportunity to get the mainstream audience to come and watch the film. As not only will the original film be in the hearts of the first audience but also their children. Doubling the audience for latest film in the reboot of a franchise. Which is clever in terms of gaining a profit, but lately audience are starting to disagree with the idea of certain films being remade. Sequels aren't that bad in the terms of an audience but sometimes they see that franchises are going on too long (Note how FF is going onto 10 films and Marvel is still in its empire of films)

Another thing to note from looking at mainstreams and reboots is the use of style from the original movies. They saw how the original filmed worked and replicated the break out but on a greater scale, they kept the same use of having children in danger but this time it was two brothers rather than the original brother and sister. It is even set in the same place as the first film but has been updated and continues to use the old logo and marketing. They also go for the stereotypical girly girl having to face the tough realms of the new reality in under 30 minutes screen time because it works with the mainstream. Which is why mainstreams generally don't have the same issues as a niche audience. But if they play with fire too much then they get cocky and may under estimate the mainstream  showing the flaws in their target audience research. Which could bring down a whole production.

All it may not always work, if you do not play close attention to what the mainstream wants you could end up with a block buster flop. See Terminator Genesis example from earlier on in the report.

Alternative:

Alternative is when a producer aims a product at a select target audience but then turns it around to try and see if the product works elsewhere. This is often done to grasp more viewers or to see if a product is more successful with another audience. For instance take the show "The Big Bang Theory":

It originally started off as a small production with a niche audience. It was generally aimed at nerdy men in their teens to 25 in America. But after gaining popularity the show started to change its aim on the audience by making the content more mainstream. I.E something for everyone to enjoy which is why various characters were added to the show as regulars ( Amy - Mayim Bialik, Bernadette - Melissa Raunch and Stuart - Kevin Sussman.) 

Now the show is targeted at males and females of all sexual orientation, race, ethnicity of any region between the ages of 15-49. Which now because of its wide appeal rakes in a total of 20 million  viewers plus per episode. Which also has an effect on the money the stars earn as now the leads earn up to $1 million per episode. But the problem with alternative is that if you are too harsh and change the content too much you may loose the original audience. As some fans think TBBT has changed too much and is out trying to be mainstream using the laugh tracks, repeatable traits, out of character motives and poorly written jokes.  Whereas some think its lost its edge after batch producing episodes. Yet overall, in this term it has work as they have not only gained a wider audience but they have increased their viewing figures ten fold. 

And finally lets see how Iron Man 3 attempted to be alternative in their production: 

The 3rd film in the trilogy was a lot darker than the previous and was clear that Marvel was trying to aim this Iron Man movie at an older audience. Also note that this was a result of Shane Black becoming the director instead of Jon Favreau. Staying clear of the lighter and funnier tone created in the Avengers. This was because they wanted to focus more on the journey of Tony Stark than the Iron Man suit. Yet, as a result fans were not happy as they wanted it to be like the others in the trilogy. Which caused a split and debate online whether or not it was a good film. As fans for the first film were from the age range of 12 (A) - 34 that is male led, that live in America (As Marvel is America) of any race, religion or ethnicity. 

Yet Iron Man 3 was just a 12 which meant that no one less than that go see the film, even with an adult. The style of marketing also changed as it looked more depression and in danger than previous material. Which meant that it didn't really attempted to change all of the audience, but that the alternative was aiming for a higher age range. As some of the younger audience wouldn't of really understood the films message of messing with biology and technology or the fact that Tony was suffering from a post war esk trama. But yet again it managed to do well in the box office crossing $409,013,994 dollars overall which sets it in the all time 16th highest grossing movie. For my last example see Gotham at the start of the report. As Gotham is an on going alternative to see if it can gain more respect and power in the audience. As it had trouble getting its feet off the ground. So when profiling and audience it is always best to have an alternative in mind.

Niche:

Not every audience likes following the mainstream productions. Often, audiences will like just one thing. This is known as a niche, an area that only look at a small target audience. When you profile this type of audience it will often be very specific and won't have a wide appeal by the masses. There might be a big appeal of that subject but not by the whole population. This enters a minority audience focusing on obscure or less popular themes. This can make it hard to target this audience as if you do not meet everyone as their needs they can be put off. For instance this can be said for the different genres of film.

Horror is a very niche genre as it's themes are not for everyone. Horror generally appeals to someone who is between the ages of 15-40 of any gender and location. Horror films often give the audience a thrill and normally scares the younger age of the spectrum. This is usually done through "Jump Scares" whereas the older age of the spectrum like the violence and gore. This makes it niche due to the interests, as there is no other factor other than between 15-40 and class. Overall, horror is aimed at the working class community. This is due to the level of thrill for the cost of a cinema ticket. Higher classes will normally watch a mix of genres as they have a higher production value.

For my last example of niche you can apply it to the franchise Firefly, which got a TV show and a movie. Which ultimately was cancelled due to low viewing figures. Yet the audience love the production and would easily pay to see it again. What makes it so niche is the target audience which is: of the sci fi western genre, of those who live in America and China, fans of Whedons Buffy of both genders between the ages 15-30. What made it really hard to get into was because it turned into a space opera which was quoted to be "Ahead of its time" which make it hard for a big following. The dialogue was also said to be made up and used current slang in its own way which made it hard to follow. Which highlights a flaw in the niche way of targeting an audience as if you make it too specific  you will struggle to gain a following. Yet after getting this reputation it became a cult icon so it gained a following long after its demise.

Often to get around this, productions will lower their age ratings so they can make it appeal to a wider target audience. This is why the Avengers films aren't that dark as they have the appeal for both children and adults, not only widening their target audience but gaining a mass profit. Take The Martian for instance as well the book contained lots and lots of swearing and deeper topics. Yet the film was a 12A so that younger audiences could enjoy the idea of space exploration which is an appeal to the masses. This is why it will often change swear words for "Darn" " Blast" and "oh no".


Example Profiles:

Now that we have looked at what a profile is made up of, lets take a look at 3 examples of target audience profiles.

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The first example is great for when producers are doing research. Yes, they may not make it as obvious as this example but they will ask similar style of questions. The first section is demographics, like we saw earlier its their gender, age and family life. There's also a section to add the interests, problems and values. One main concern is that its very open, but you could aim to hand it to certain people. One other way they can approach this is by handing it out to everyone or a select group (I.E 100 people) and then judging what product to make. I.E if 75/100 are interested in cookery you would aim to make something related to that subject as their is a mass interest. 

The section next to the demographics then goes into the last 5 articles they have read. By getting an information if it was useful or not to an audience can be very helpful. As it means producers can avoid making the mistakes others had made. 

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The next example is more of an overview or an analyse of research, this is a perfect example as it shows most, if not all of the sections from before. It also shows them in a clear and visual way. For instance, you can take away that the main audience is Male, of the age 60+, in the NSW area who have had tertiary education and earn $67,600 - $121.599. This can then be used by the producer to start working on their marketing and content of their products. They can also see who to aim for a secondary target audience of : Males; 50-59; in the VIC area; who have tertiary education and earn between $0-$67,599. Note how because its American it doesn't reference the ABC1 system. 

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Finally this profile isn't as detailed but it highlights the key area's ready to make a product. Leaving it more of summary than an overall analysis. From this you can see its from the skilled working class down to the unemployed. They are also from the ages of 15-21 who are white females. They also believe in the gaining experience who are in the self esteem tier. This is good for keeping the staff on track when creating the product as their research is already their. They can also use it as a checklist during production. If it doesn't suit the needs of the profile then they will be able to change criteria beforehand. 

Written Profile Example

For instance lets take a look at a written examples for existing products.My first example is for a radio package I produced for the film "The Interview": 

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Target Audience

My target audience is for both male/females who are aged between 16-19 and attend Middlesbrough College.

Target Audience Age

From my target audience mind map I have learnt a lot about my audience. Since this is for students on a full time course at Middlesbrough College, the age range will be between 16-19 years old. As those who have just finished secondary education, will be joining the college and those who are at the end of the course (normally 2 years in length) will be moving on to university. This means that the content I produce will have to be aimed towards young people and not older; as the whole aim is for it to be for students, which rules out the older generation of tutors and teachers.

Target Audience Gender

As the college allows both genders to study, my target audience is for both male and female. This means the topics will have to suit both sexes otherwise I am not fully covering the target audience, which means listener numbers will not be at the maximum. In order to get the most viewers possible, whilst still being entertaining my content will have to be fully thought-out.

Target Audience Location/Education

Since this will be placed in Middlesbrough College, it is fair to say that the target audience is for 16-19 year olds, who are on a full time course and attend the College. Of course, this doesn’t mean that everyone who goes to the college lives in the same place. This is because; through various means of transport students can live as far away as Whitby or as close by living in the town centre. However, this does mean that it will only be in the North East. As it would be hard for someone to get into college everyday if they lived too far away. To suit this I will use colloquial north east language, to apply to my surroundings. I will also use an informal tone and speak with enthusiasm in order to maintain the audience’s attention.  If the topic I choose is serious, then I will still use a chatty tone to speak to the audience but not as much if the topic was light hearted.

Target Audience Interests: Male

When doing my mindmaps, it was evident that I would need to explore 3 sections; Male interests, Female interests and Unisex interests. For the male interests it was clear that boys generally like the gorier and physical activities such as watching TV shows such as “Game of Thrones” and “The Walking Dead”. Film genres that were a main interest to boys were: Action, Fantasy and Sci Fi. For example in the action genre, there is a lot of blood, violence, combat, explosions and various crashes and collision which is more appealing to the gender of males. Boys also generally tend to play more games on consoles such as the Xbox One, PS4 and PC; some of the popular franchises played are Call of Duty, GTA, Assassins Creed and Fifa. Some of the physical activities/sports boys like are Football, Rugby and Ice Hockey. Last of all, some boys also enjoy reading darker comics such as those from DC which produce Batman and Superman.

Target Audience Interests: Female

Girls on the other hand seem to find the film genres of Romance, Musicals and Animation more interesting, as some girls are more sensitive to men when it comes to the portrayal of violence on screen. Girls also have more interests in TV that have girl dominant characters such as the show “Pretty Little Liars”. Girls also tend to follow celebrities more, in terms of fashion, what the celebrities are getting up to and how they stay slim and have a great lifestyle. Some of the topics that are also under this umbrella are fashion which covers: hairstyles, dresses, handbags, make up, etc… It is also seen that most girls tend to play less games then boys, and will often only play games on their mobiles in the form of apps. The games are not as violent and gory as those played by the average teen male; for more details check out the mind maps section.

Target Audience Interests: Unisex

When it comes to the unisex section, one key factor became a key interest and that was college and university; as both genders will be interested in things such as the work experience and advantage programme. They will also be interested in how to apply for university and what tips they can get for progressing on in life. As not everyone in the target audience wants to go to university, they may wish to start up a business, get a job/apprenticeship or move on to higher education.  Everyone in the target audience will be in some shape or form, have an interest in social media. Especially sites such as: facebook, twitter and snapchat; as it allows them to chat and communicate with their friends easily and efficiently. Although, they enjoy chatting online, they also enjoy social events with their friends whether its going to the cinema or going bowling. Another interesting thing is that every teenager has an interest in saving money, as some people get a free bus pass, get a student discount card or get free school meals depending on a parent’s income.  Overall, when it came to my mind maps there were a lot of crossovers to what both teen male and females are interested in. As in the modern age there is no longer that definite split to what males and females can be into as it is a lot more respective social norm.  So when it comes to my speech package, I will include topics that will appeal to both members of sex by making the topic something everyone will have heard off and may have an interest in. As of course, it is impossible to get the whole of the target audience interested in a product.

Target Audience Content

In order to appeal to my target audience my content will need to interest them. This is already covered by the choice of film as the audience for Seth Rogen’s films are teenagers to young adults 15-25; so my audience is part of those in Rogen’s ;  Which means that my audience will be interested in The Interview. This is why I am including quotes and clips from the film, as the audience will find them interesting. The content also appeals to them , as they are part of the modern generation who have got use to watching media online. By talking about having new releases brought out onto streaming sites such as Netflix and Google Play; the audience will latch on and learn new information.

Target Audience Style

Casual, Entertaining, and informative; It will feature lots of informal language to keep the audience engaged as it will seem they are having a normal conversation with their friends. I also want it to be entertaining so that the informative side of the package does not bore the audience, which could lead to loss of viewers. I will use speak with enthusiasm throughout the package in order to keep the audience engaged.  Last of all, this event has become part of history so I want to cover the facts and not just the fiction behind the film so I will have the style/purpose of to inform.

How Media Producers Carry Out Research

Now that we know why we conduct audience research and how it can be used to profile, we can look at how we conduct audience research. Research is split into two different categories.

Quantitative Audience Research

Quantitative research is secondary research for any media project, as you are finding out where audiences currently reside. This could also be primary research if you are collecting the data yourself. Here you can make a rough judgement to what content is most like yours, you can then look at the figures of similar products to place yours in the market. But what is this type of research? Like the name, this type of research is all about the numbers. In fancy terms its the systematic investigation into a phenomena via mathematical techniques. For instance the statistics on how many people watch the latest series of Game of Thrones, or how many people watch Songs of Praise on a Sunday. This will stereotype the audience as all you know so far is the numbers behind the views not the people.

Media producers will often create research departments to go online and gather in the statistics about audiences and where they spend their time in the world of media. They will then compile this research into a report in order to see if their new product has the potential in the current market. Alternatively, they could go out and gather this information for themselves (Primary research) but this often takes up: time, money,staff and resources. So online organisations are set in place to give this information to the producers. After gathering the initial numbers of measuring a phenomena you can follow this research with qualitative research, to further expand your research. This type of data can also be turned into a visual format: graphs, charts and profiles like we saw earlier. Generally these will be made by producers as the online organisations just leaves you with the raw numbers. This type of research is also very structured in the way it is done. Now that we know what it is, likes see it in practice. 

BARB

Since 1981, the Broadcasters' Audience Research Board (BARB). Has been in charge of gathering the official viewing figures for the UK. They represent the viewing behavior of the UK's 26 million households. They offer broadcasters and producers a minute by minute breakdown of nations viewing figures. This is vital for the producers as they can assess how their own product has perform but they can also use it as market research to see how well their products could do. To estimate a viewing pattern, they carefully select a panel of  private homes. To make sure it is fair and accurate they recruit all types of households to be part of the panel so that it suits the necessary demographics. Currently 5100 households are on the panel.

Once they are part of the panel, BARB gets an external company to fit a meter. Alongside the meter is a software meter for tablets, PC's and laptops. To know who is watching what each family member is assigned a number. If they walk into a room with a TV on they must enter their number into a remote control and press it again when they leave. To give a minute by minute break down of who is watching what. If you are a user of SKY, they can use embedded meta data to access whats being viewed on that box. The final figures are then sent off to be processed and released the next day at 9:30am. These figures also include the viewing of recorded programmes or those on demand. The figures displayed on the website are not the over night figures. The figures on the website are often those of the audience that watched it live at broadcast. Currently on the website BARB provides the following: A Viewing summary for all channels, the top 10, the top 30, figures by genre and then channel groups. This is done for both weekly and monthly figures. Last of all they provide the figures for catch up data. Lets take a look at examples from each:

Channel	Average daily reach		Weekly reach		Average weekly viewing	Share
	000s	%	000s	%	Hrs:min per person	%
ALL/ANY TV	44,114	75.95	54,509	93.85	24:43	100.00
BBC 1	27,104	46.67	46,099	79.37	5:47	23.39
BBC 2	12,017	20.69	31,834	54.81	1:20	5.36
ITV	16,876	29.06	37,153	63.97	3:18	13.38
ITV +1	1,813	3.12	8,645	14.89	0:11	0.71
ITV HD	3,593	6.19	10,191	17.55	0:42	2.81
Channel 4	10,211	17.58	30,842	53.10	1:11	4.79
Channel 4+1	2,124	3.66	9,931	17.10	0:12	0.79
Channel 5	8,016	13.80	26,214	45.13	0:54	3.72
Channel 5+1	808	1.39	4,366	7.52	0:05	0.32
Channel 5 +24	426	0.73	2,471	4.25	0:02	0.13

First of all you can see a snippet from the viewing summary. Note: it is only a snippet due to the fact that if the entire list was included you would be spending weeks analyzing every bit of data. From this you can see which channels are getting the best audiences from. This is a create piece of research for a producer as they can see where their product would be viewed the most. But they must also remember that their content must be suitable to the channel, as each one is different. ITV is known for its dramas, where as the BBC is more about a mix of different genres. So your latest 4 part drama may be more suited to ITV rather than the BBC. But to make it clear you must do your research first. From this summary you can see that BBC1 is at the top of the list for the overall average daily and weekly reach. Making it the most popular channel of them all. With the average of one person in the UK population spending 5 hours and 47 minutes watching BBC 1 content a week. With a grand total of 23.39% of shares. Followed by a relatively close second ITV which has a total of 13.38% shares. Not only is this great for both companies, as ITV could now launch a research campaign into what makes everyone watch the BBC and how they could draw that audience. But the companies can use it in their annual meetings to chart progress and set internal targets and improvements.

Sky Atlantic

w/e 11 Oct 2015

		7 day data (000s)	28 day data (000s)
1	BALLERS (TUE 2201)	258	n/a
2	BALLERS (TUE 2237)	216	n/a
3	THE LEFTOVERS (MON 2202)	213	n/a
4	AQUARIUS (TUE 2100)	81	n/a
5	LAST WEEK TONIGHT WITH JOHN OLIVER (MON 2317)	80	n/a
6	GAME OF THRONES S05 (SUN 2211)	71	n/a
7	NURSE JACKIE (WED 2237)	69	n/a
8	NURSE JACKIE (WED 2203)	67	n/a
9	BLUE BLOODS S02 (THU 2002)	49	n/a
10	GAME OF THRONES S05 (SUN 2100)	48	n/a

Next up is the top 10 programmes per individual channel for the week. Now that you know previously what channels had what audience you can then see the full break down of what programmes that audience was watching. Take this example from the week of 5-11/10/15. You can see that the new episodes of Ballers was drawing in more of an audience than the newer episodes of programmes such as Aquarius and Last Week Tonight. Which could cause concern for the other programmes as they want to be as good as the other programmes. Factors that could have resulted in lower viewing figures for other programmes are that they are repeats, par from John Oliver. Which is fine for a programme such as Game of Thrones as they gain mass viewings on the airing of the programme and the current series is now 5-6 months old which is around the time the DVD will have been released. Now making viewing on demand. These figures (As you can see are in the 000's) provide the data for during the week as people may have recorded the programme and over a month. This way a channel can monitor how its programmes are doing and how they can aim to draw in more of an audience for those that arn't doing so well. They can also take this data and compare it to other channels to see who is gaining a larger share of the population.

BBC1

w/e 11 Oct 2015

		7 day data (Millions)	28 day data (Millions)
1	THE GREAT BRITISH BAKE OFF (WED 2001)	15.05	n/a
2	STRICTLY COME DANCING (SAT 1820)	10.38	n/a
3	DOCTOR FOSTER (WED 2102)	10.09	n/a
4	STRICTLY COME DANCING: THE RESULTS (SUN 1918)	8.68	n/a
5	EASTENDERS (MON 2000)	7.26	n/a
6	EASTENDERS (THU 1929)	6.83	n/a
7	EASTENDERS (FRI 2001)	6.22	n/a
8	DOCTOR WHO (SAT 2026)	6.05	n/a
9	SIX O'CLOCK NEWS (WED 1800)	6.02	n/a
10	ANTIQUES ROADSHOW (SUN 2002)	5.92	n/a
11	COUNTRYFILE (SUN 1818)	5.79	n/a
12	NEW TRICKS (TUE 2100)	5.66	n/a
13	EASTENDERS (TUE 1929)	5.51	n/a
14	CASUALTY (SAT 2110)	5.43	n/a
15	SIX O'CLOCK NEWS (MON 1800)	4.84	n/a
16	TEN O'CLOCK NEWS (WED 2200)	4.71	n/a
17	SIX O'CLOCK NEWS (FRI 1800)	4.63	n/a
18	SIX O'CLOCK NEWS (THU 1800)	4.61	n/a
19	SIX O'CLOCK NEWS (TUE 1800)	4.56	n/a
20	FROM DARKNESS (SUN 2101)	4.51	n/a
21	BBC NEWS (SUN 2200)	4.51	n/a
22	HOLBY CITY (TUE 2000)	4.47	n/a
23	HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU (FRI 2101)	4.26	n/a
24	BBC NEWS (SAT 2211)	4.13	n/a
25	THE ONE SHOW (MON 1858)	3.96	n/a
26	WATCHDOG (THU 2001)	3.94	n/a
27	TEN O'CLOCK NEWS (TUE 2200)	3.84	n/a
28	ROONEY: THE MAN BEHIND THE GOALS (MON 2101)	3.83	n/a
29	TEN O'CLOCK NEWS (THU 2200)	3.81	n/a
30	THE ONE SHOW (FRI 1858

Much like the top 10, the top 30 does exactly the same but provides more data. This can come in useful for a producer as they can see the full list of programmes for the week/month that done well in the competitive market. They can also see a larger share of the market to see where their product would stand. As in this case the best of BBC's current programmes is competitions (Strictly and Bake off), drama and soaps. With Easterenders being the BBC's leading soap. So if you were going to make a new baking programme you could follow the lead of the GBBO:

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For instance, programmes such as BBQ champ (A cookery competition hosted
by Myleene Klass and judged by Man V Food host Adam Richman )have shown their inspiration to look at a current format and try and beat is using the same format.

Yet the show failed, which not only proves that, yes you can aim to create competition with a similar product to yourselves. But you really need to try hard if you are going to try a very similar format using different products. As the time of the shows airing was towards the end of the BBQ season, so you weren't going to get a mass following behind those who join in with the Bake Off bakes. The show also featured casts from outside the UK so it didn't have the same mass UK appeal as the The Great British Bake Off. Which resulted in the show being axed after a one 5 episode season. What is also interesting is this quote from the mirror (same link as images). "I'm gunning for the number one spot - they're the top dog. I wanted to see what people like and I wanted to know the format." Yet the most important thing is that he had never seen an episode of TGBBO. Which not only proves that you need to not only look at the numbers, but you need to do qualitative research as well. As he is literally going in blind this way as he has no experience or knowledge of what he's trying to compete with. Resulting his show getting 2 million views and TGBBO ending with a 10 million view sum.

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BARB also offers a weekly breakdown of audience share for the different genres for producers. From this you can see that the leading genres are entertainment, drama and documentaries. As a producer you can view this data and look at the under developed areas to either try and create a unique product for them to boast the genre and your product. Or you could create a product to compete in the leading areas, conducting research into what audiences are where and how you can target a similar crowd. To which you can find the stats in this part of the research and then dig deeper in the qualitative side of the research process.  

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And finally, BARB offers a visual representation of the viewing summary we looked at first. This way a producer could easily print out the weekly share for channels and analyse which channel is offering the most watched content. Then by combing this to the top 10 and 30 you can get a full idea of where audiences currently are. You can then take this information and appeal it to your product to get an idea of who you want to target. Follow it up with more detailed research and then you can begin to make your profile. This profile can then be taken into production meetings or even pitches to get your product made. So when it finally comes to selling your product you can market as needed to your audience. In a way that leaves the producer with a large target audience and a large profit.

RAJAR:

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RAJAR stands for the Radio Joint Audience Research. They are the official body in charge of measuring the UK radio audiences. This is jointly owned by the BBC and the Radiocentre for the benefit of the commercial radio centers. This is great for radio producers to access because they can analyse a range of data that is there for them to use. For instance at this link you can find out that:

• Adults (15+) form a  total of 48.2 million viewers (which is 89.9% of the UK population) who tune into a radio station of their choice each week. This is handy for the producers as they now know that their potential target audience is in an area that they can market. Which is why film clips and trailers are played on radio breaks. As it sparks a connection with the listener and makes them want to see the product. 

• You can also learn that 55% use a digital product to access the radio. Which means you could put adverts on their apps and website when they go to access the radio. As there is a good change you will come across it when accessing the original desired product. 

• Finally the last important information a producer could take away is the fact that 45% of 15-24 year olds on social media want to receive updates about their radio station. So if they ever aim to launch a marketing campaign they can all ready spread the word to 45% of its listeners. The same can be said for adults, but their total is only 31%. 

Now if we take a look at what RAJAR offers, they offer a market trends section which would allow producers to easily see where the main stream audience is held. Then producers of content outside of radio could make an advert and target it towards the masses. RAJAR also offers a data base for the current quarter of the year. 

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This data base contains the population, the reach of the population, the percent of the reach, the average hours per listener and the total hours spend on that channel. So for instance BBC 1 only reaches 19% of the population and gets a listening share of 6.4% out off all the other stations. Yet BBC Radio 4 gets 20% of the population with a listening share of 11.7%. This isn't too bad as they are both BBC products and are all funded by the licence fee which is why some of their products aren't as favored as the other as they make content for everyone and not just a select audience for one channel. 

However, compare the data to a commercial radio station and you see that Capital network only have 3.8% of the market share. So the producers of Capital can then go compare their work with the leading brands to see how they can improve. Not only will they improve their content, they could also gain a bigger target audience and gain a bigger fan base raking in more money for a commercial station which is profit led. Compared to the corporate BBC which is led on good quality products.

Qualitative Audience Research

Unlike quantitative research which is formed on the basis of numbers and data; qualitative is about how the target audience/ people think and feel about a subject area looking at the quality's of the product rather than figures. The data is always descriptive.For instance the producers of the latest Suicide Squad film might of went out and done a survey to find out what they think of Jay Leto as the new Joker. Of course, they could also look online to see what articles and discussions are taking place on sites such as IGN, Cinema and Digital Spy.

(Images from Twitter)

For discussions you can easily look at forums and websites such as Reddit which hold threads of conversations. Although there is a lot of things that can be done. Instead of getting simple yes or no answers, qualitative research requires detail conversations, responses and discussions in order to be effective. To get this data the follow methods can be used: 

•Creating and carrying out a focus group that is relevant to subject or target market. For instance you might show an early screening of a film to an audience and get them to discuss the film with you afterwards in a group to see what they thought before it goes worldwide.

•One to one interviews can also be used so that everyone gets a say on a honest level; rather than relying on the rest of the group. Interviews can either be done face to face or over the telephone. 

•Surveys can also be conducted in order to get a large amount of feedback quickly. This survey can also be spread out in a series of was such as email, post, telephone and face to face. Although it then means the questions have to be open (A meaty answer rather than yes or no) and the reviewer will have to spend a great deal of time going through all the responses. To gather surveys online you can use sites such as SurveyMonkey which can be shared on social media. Another site is SurveyGizmo which integrates in-depth interviews vie iModerate chat sessions alongside the survey. 

• Conversations can also be recorded so they can be analyzed afterwards. 

•There is also something called “Document analysis” which involves examining written, visual and any form of audio documents. For example if you were looking into studying a restaurant you would look into documents such as menus, reviews and health visitor reports. 

But most importantly what do producers use this for? Well they use it to further develop a hypotheses (someone's process of thinking on a subject matter) and can be used to develop testing for qualitative research. They can also identify what the target audience wants/looks for in a product and create a demographics from the gained information. Which results in gaining a better understanding of the context of data gathered in other methods of research. They can also work on new ideas spawned from the public comments, or they can even identity the strengths and weakness's of a current idea. This is also known as a type of primary research as you are conducting it yourself. Now lets take a look at some examples of qualitative research. 

 Focus Groups

A focus group is a form of qualitative research in which a group of people are questioned on their opinions, beliefs and attitudes towards something. In terms of media is can relate to films, directors, marketing devices, adverts, posters, actors, etc… This is used for the purpose of feedback, as they are the users of similar product/the product you are producing. Without it, you have not indication of what the public thing of your creation. Which could result in months and work going down the drain because you haven't done your research thoroughly. 

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In this case the focus group is being done to see what a group of people think about the American TV talk show host Conan. Yet what they don't know is that he is the leader of the focus group and is in disguise.In a focus group there is a person in charge and an assistant. The leader will control the group and how they go about the discussion. The first thing he does is introduce the piece and then show a clip from the show.

After watching the video he goes round each person to see what they feeling. In this case everyone has a different view; some people laugh, others don’t think its for them.This way the leader of the focus group can takes notes of who said what. Those who laughed will be targeted as his target audience. Those who don't will also be noted down and he will follow up with a question to see why they found it funny or why they didn't find it funny. All the feedback can then be ranked and analysed to breakdown the results. 

The board is also made up of different people. One older and one slightly younger women and an old man. This done for a series of videos he shows the group.This is then repeated with a series of a different focus groups to get a wide series of opinions from an audience. The same clips are showed  to the groups and he will question everyone in the group and discuss what they say. This way are you not only getting a range of people reviewing your product, but you are generally getting different stereotypes of viewers each time. This way you can look at select groups of people in a demographic and start to analyse their physcographic. We can also see this was recorded; which is a good way to analyze the results afterwards as you have an audio and visual representation of your findings. Which can be turned into a transcript or report to show to investors and production companies. 

Focus groups can be run for any purpose of research as long as its going towards a project. For instance the first lady of America and Will Ferrell lead a focus group towards a mixed group of children towards the topic of healthy life styles. By asking simple questions they can find out what the kids are eating, what is their favorite food and what they like and don't like. They can then get an idea into what needs to be done to improve the way in which young people eat and exercise. As Michelle Obama can take these matters to her husband Barack Obama. 

Will Ferrell then makes the whole process fun for the children by using his sense of humor and attitudes to get the children to participate. If they were all sat in fancy suits and spoke in a monotone voice then they would lose interest. So its also a good idea of the leader of the focus group to analyse the room and judge they are speaking too in order to make it appealing.

Questionnaires

A questionnaire is a tool for a producer to use to collect and record information about a particular subject. It is made up of questions that the recipient will answer, following the given clear instructions. Questionnaires always have to have a focus, so all the questions are related to what the producer wants to find out. It must also be clear on what the information is for as you could be misleading the public. For this type of research a questionnaire can be answered using a series of mediums: online, post , face to face or even over the phone. Face to face interviews is the most common medium(see next section for more). Which means there should be a variety in the type of questions asked so you can get a detailed breakdown instead of yes or no answers. I.E gender is always a certain option, but someones income will different against someone else's. You might also want an open question for an opinion as you can find out exactly what it is that they like about a subject.

The questionnaire is often used to collect factual information which classifies peoples behavior and circumstances. You can also set a baseline from the gathered audience, I.E what your stereotyped audience is interested in and what they want from a product in the future. This form of research has its own pros and cons. For instance you can contact a large number of people easily and quickly, yet not many might respond. Because its easy to spread, you don't know who is on the other side of the survey and you could lead to bias results. The respondents can complete a questionnaire in their own time (if outside an interview), yet its not a good medium for those who have reading/sight problems. This is why the telephone option is in place so those who are disabled in a fashion can still have an impact.  To best get an idea of a questionnaire lets have a look at some examples.

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This questionnaire is all about the music magazine industry. By having a series of check boxes they can create graphs and statistics to identify their target audience and other important factors such as cost. The check boxes work very well as a way of gather a statistic, but you would need a large sample size to correctly measure a target audience. As if only two people fill it out you could say 100% of people who read music magazines are age 15-20, spend 6+ hours on the internet, listen to all genres of music and go to live events. Not only would you waste your time, you would waste your money. So questionnaires are best aimed at a large audience, to all types of stereotypes in order to get a true reflection of your study. Not only helping to find a demographic, but to also find a gap in the market. As you might find that all your audience read music magazines but the type of genre they like hasn't been made into a magazine. Or they might find one music magazine is more popular than the others. Research can then be conducted into that magazine to see what makes it so popular and how they can aim to achieve similar popularity with their new product.

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Other questionnaires can also look like this. They both have the same purpose as the previous example but this time the subject is education. This type is used more to get the statistics and don't care about the personal life of the audience. This time all the questions are about the quality of their school, to which the school will already know who they are asking and if they ask everyone in school then they will get a full understanding of how to improve. The use of never, once, 2 or 3 times, 3+ and not sure will also make great visual representations. As all those questions that flag to most % in the never section can immediately be targeted and looked at for improvement for their target audience. This type of questionnaire can also be used in the world of media in order to fully under stand what a target audience gets up to in their spare time, what they like and where they will spend their money.  

Face-to - Face Interviews

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Face to face interviews is a mix off the last section we have looked at. As a leader or interviewer will talk to one person about their opinions and beliefs. Making it more of a discussion than a one word answer. They may use a questionnaire as their basis of the interview but by getting a personal reaction you can record what they say and record their facial expressions.Getting a personal reaction instead of a piece of text. This type of interview is also known as an in-person interview and is one of the oldest and most popular forms of survey collecting.

They will often be used to get an emotion from a subject for a project for instance you could do a one to one interview on the subject of violence and how the sensitivity subject makes them feel when its used in TV and Movies. The main advantage is that the pair can have a discussion and delve deep into the subject, the interviewee can also ask for the interview to clarify what they mean for questions. Which can help the interviewer understand a participants mindset.Interviewers could also use visual cues to spark a reaction. How does this image make you feel? Does this image make you want to watch or use this product?

A one to one interview can also take advantage of social cues such as voice, body and language to add to the verbal information already given by the interviewee. There is also the chance to directly react on what another person says instead of having a time delay online or through the post. You can quickly get through a series of different people in a day to find their opinions and review them at the end of the day through a recording. But this means you have to be consistent with every interview in order to keep the research fair and focused. You must also make sure to make notes alongside the recordings in case something goes wrong and you loose all your evidence. This way you can check that you have answered all the questions. It is also important to remember that it takes a long time to transcribe so notes can help with this process.

Lets take a look at an example of a one to one interview. Although this was being done for a comedic and entertainment side of things, the actual way the interview is being done is a good example. As it shows that a person will be invited in to do an interview. Before it begins the interviewer will make sure the subject knows what hes doing and what its for and then they begin. This interview happened to be interrupted as the interviewer started to discuss a prank show on the TV, the same one that was being filmed at the time. So the cast decided to surprise the interviewee after he started to cotton on by revealing the real reason behind the interview. You can also see how Sal (The interviewer) was reading off the questions but also adding in a discussion in order to make the interviewee feel comfortable. He would then make notes, after they were done breaking down and discussing the subject, (or pretend for the show) about the interviewees answer. This marks the of the blog.

I forgot to fill out the second box. So I confirm all my work is my own. Cameron Harris - 11/11/15