P1 - Primary Research

PRIMARY RESEARCH

AUDIENCE RESEARCH

We conducted primary research within our sixth form to gain information about audience viewing trends. 

 

This bit of data tells us that that people primarily enjoy home comforts, like to escape from the real world and enjoy discovering new things. This tells me that to try and reach a wider audience I will make my show for the Psychometric profiles of mainstreamers, strugglers and explorers. I may want to include deeper and more meaningful storylines. I may also want to create characters that are relatable to the audience.

We found that people watch Comedy, Action, Police drama, Crime drama and adventure most often with documentaries and drama being close behind. This emphasises the fact of escapism that we see through the other data. Especially in this age group of 16-21 year old the genres that are most popular are arguably the most interesting visually and with the narrative as well. This tells me I will need to create an interesting story that may not be relatable to the audience but be something they can escape into. At the lowest results we see other, spy drama, light entertainment and game show. This tells me I should avoid these things as they are more aimed at an older audience during day time television. 

This data tells us that audiences watch TV shows for escapism. This is in reference to the uses and gratifications theory by Blumer and Katz. This also links with the fact that this audience watches lots of crime, police and adventure drama to escape into these adventures the characters are having on screen. I may want to look at creating specific comforting environments or captivating stories.

This data tells us that the characters and narratives are the things people are emotional engaged with in shows. This also links with he ides that the audience want to escape into the world on screen, and the people in it. This tells me I need to create interesting storylines and a wide range of characters, as keeping this age group captivated and  interested is very important.

My audience is most likely to watch shows on Netflix, BBC iPlayer and Disney+. This is good as it tells me that the audience is familiar with the BBC platform and that the episodes streaming there every night wouldn't be otherworldly to them. However there are platforms like Netflix and Disney+ on there which don't stream content on a schedule every day like the BBC platforms do. This may tell me I will need to market and advertise my show considering this.

This data tells me there is a vast majority of my audience with a white (British) ethnicity, followed by small number of people with mixed heritage, people who are of black (British) ethnicity and of Asian (Pakistan) ethnicity. This tells me that I need to create my show with a white British audience in mind, I could present this by using actors of that ethnicity. However, I want to make sure to represent these other ethnicities especially as I understand this primary research is only taken over a small subsection of the UK in a privileged, predominantly white area. I want to make sure to try and include as many actors of different ethnicities as possible to promote the diversity that the media industry is moving towards. This is especially important on the BBC3 platform that is more forward thinking in nature.