Audiences
Mainstream -audience that consumes a product that appeals to a wide range of groups and cultures
Niche - audience of a specialist interest media product that may only appeal to a small number o people or those who fall within a specific demographic profile (eg. age, ethnicity)
Narrowcasting - aiming programmes at specific and specialist audiences as opposed to broadcasting to 'mass' audiences.
Chris Anderson: The Long Tail Theory
- Devised by Chris Anderson of Wired magazine
- First published 2004, then as a book in 2009
- Concerns mass vs niche products and audience
-The theory suggests our culture and economy is shifting away form focus of relatively small number of mainstream products and markets and towards niches.
BARB data
- BARB stands for Broadcasters' Audience Research Board. They collate viewing figures for all the major UK broadcasters such as BBC, TV and Sky.
- BARB website: During September 2018, there were 3.81 million people who watched The X factor in a week.
- ANALYSIS: This data shows that there were more viewers for Strictly come dancing and therefore shows that this is a mainstream audience who favour entertainment (may be an older audience), the less viewers of xfactor suggest that audience prefer strictly come dancing to xfactor - may be an older audience.
-BARB data can then be used by television companies to assess how well a television series is performing – compared with previous series, for example, or with rival shows on other channels.
- ANALYSIS: This data shows that the average watch ratings decreased over the years of 2005-17 which suggests that the audience of doctor who may have stopped watching the programme to watch other mainstream programmes such a Lucifer.
Demographics
Media producers study the breakdown of their target audiences based on variables in age, ethnicity, gender, economic status/class, level of education, hobbies and interests, and lifestyle choices.
Psychographics
Profiling of audiences based on personal beliefs, values, interests, and lifestyle.
NRS GRADE CHART:
The grades are often grouped into ABC1 and C2DE and these are taken to equate to middle class and working class respectively. Only around 2% of the UK population identifies as upper class and this group is not included in the classification scheme.
Psychographic Profile
- Psychographic information- buyer's habits, hobbies, spending habits and values.(personality characteristics, lifestyle, social class, attitudes, principles and beliefs, activities and interests)
- Demographics- 'who' your buyer is, psychographics- 'why' they buy.
- Effective marketiing- understanding both demo and psychographics
How to obtain psychographics:
1. Interviewing existing clients
2. Investigating website analytics
Audience needs
Uses & Gratifications theory:
The Uses and Gratifications Theory assumes audiences actively seek out media to satisfy individual needs.
The Uses and Gratifications Theory looks to answer three questions:
- What do people do with the media?
- What are their underlying motives for using said media?
- What are the pros and cons of this individual media use?
- Information
- Finding to about relevant events in society and the world
- Seeking advice
- Satisfying curiosity and general interest
- Learning; self-education
- Gaining a sense of security through knowledge
- Personal Identity
- Finding reinforcement for personal values
- Finding models of behaviour
- Identifying with values others
- Gaining insight into others
- Integration and Social Interaction
- Gaining insight into circumstances of others
- Identifying with others and gaining a sense of belonging
- Finding a basis for conversation and social interaction
- Having a substitute for real-life companionship
- Entertainment
- Escapism
- Relaxing
- Filling time
- Emotional release
- Sexual gratification
- Education
- Escapism
Information- news (listened to via radio in the car in the morning), sky news app on my smartphone
Personal identity - watching youtubers going on holiday enjoying there lives inspires me
Entertainment- doing workouts to relax and fill time
Integration- watching love island every summer then speakng to my friends about it
Education- watching revision videos online
Escapism- watching netflix films and series's lets me escape into the world of the film/series
Hi Lexie,
ReplyDeleteThese notes are great. Please reply to this message by giving me an example of the long tail theory from the real world. In other words pick a media brand you know that is doing this
Thanks