By Josh Byrne Jose Carlo Munoz Deonis Berdynaj
BARB ( Broadcaster Audience Research) Board). They use set-up meters in a sample of homes to measure what everyone who lives there and what they watch on television and for how long. They asked 11500 people or the representative sample to record the programs. They have private home viewing and their own remote control. The disadvantage of this that the T.V might be left on and the BARD might get false result from this. Audience Research has several ways to research on what the audience want’s to watch. *Focus Groups *Ratings *Average hours watched *Surveys
Focus group This is a form of research where a group of people are asked about there opinions, believes and attitudes about certain T.V shows. This helps researchers find out the exactly what shows people do and don’t want to watch. They take a vote of what the majority of people want to watch and put the show on TV. However it is not a 100% reliable as people may lie or just follow what ever everyone else says.
Questionnaires Questionnaires are when you give people a sheet of questions and you have to vote on multiple choice question. This will help researchers find out which shows people will want to watched by tallying the votes. However this has the same problem as focus group as people may lie or just copy.
Average hours watch Researchers ask around 11500 people if they can record what they watch on TV. This helps decide how long they make episode by taking the average time watched and using it as a length of the show or episodes. If a lot of people watched certain shows then day they will know witch shows are popular and which aren't
Ratings Usually you can tell whether or not a show is popular by the amount of people who watch it everyday a week. This helps researchers know which genre/sub-genres of shows are failing at the moment and which one is successful. If they are not getting high ratings then is highly likely that the shows will be cancelled. However it may not be always accurate as shows on a inconvenient times for people in college in mid day on the other hand poplar shows are repeated at later times .
Ethnicity/ Demographics Ethnicity is where you come from. You might be Filipino, British, Polish, American, halfhalf or others. They use Ethnicity to group people in the ways of skin colour, country of birth, region of birth and religion. For instance people who watch BBC ASIA are people who live in the UK but where born on ASIA.
Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) SOC is a way to distinguish between different working classes (Upper, Middle and Lower classes) people who fit in the upper class (A and B) will watch shows like BBC News to get informed about what's happening around the world. People who are in the Middle or Lower classes (C1,C2,D and E )will watch shows like How I Met Your Mother purely for entertainment.
Sexual Orientation and Gender Shows like Top Gear are very gender orientated, we researched on the internet and found out that 40% of the people who watch Top gear are female which means 60% are male the main reason that male’s watch this show is the excitement around the speed and women watch not because of the cars but for the adventures and the funny jokes. X Factor is a British television music show to find new talent and make them compete to find the best singer. X Factor is targeted more at a young audience to keep it fresh and keep the show going.
Life style / Psychographics Psychographics is the study personality, values , attitudes, interest and lifestyle. Psychographic studies of individuals or communities can be valuable in the fields of marketing, demographics, opinion research, featuring, and social research in general. Source (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychographic) Life style doesn't determine your job and the way you live you can be Upper Class and eat fast food and shop at Primark to save money. They use Life style in TV so they know what kind of people there aiming at like Britain's got talent is for Middle Class or Lower Class.
Mode of Address (Content, Language, Narrative, Imagery, Style, Genre) The way media products address their audiences can have a big effect on how audiences understand them. Mode of address includes the accents or dialects used, but it is also much more than this. It is primarily about the way a media product communicates with its audience – and this happens in a number of different ways. Source (BTEC Level 2 Media Audiences & Products)
Content The content in a TV programme can be serious, funny, true or fictional. The media also uses products that refer to other products. For example this pictures shows the opening scene in The Simpson's but with the Flintstones posing as the characters in The Simpson’s. this is what we call intertextuality using products that refer to other products.
Language The language use in Television doesn't only determine what accent they use. The language is more about if its formal or nonformal. BCC news will always use formal language to ensure the audience can understand them clearly. While Top Boy form BBC uses slang mainly because the show is based in the streets of London
Imagery Imagery is the entire selling point of TV it is the only thing which separates the TV from the radio. Also they used it to increase the impact of the certain situation in shows for instance if it is supposed to be a scary show then the lighting will be dark.
Style TV uses certain styles to present their show. The news will usually be sitting at a desk or on a sofa with sheets on a table talking to the camera. Comedies like Big Bang Theory are usually centred around a certain place, in this case it is Sheldon and Leonard’s which are the main characters apartment. Comedies are usually filmed in a single studio (Big Bang Theory, Friends etc.) However most non comedies don’t (Marvel agents of shield). Also action shows usually switch cameras every few seconds to show the speed and brutality at which the fight is happening in.
Genre Genre is how different kinds of shows are classed. There are several different kinds of genre. Comedy, Action, Horror and Romance are just a few of the Genres. There are also several different kind of sub genres like Stand up comedy and Sit-coms. Genre is used so people can find what kind of show they want to watch. There are channels which are solely devoted to one kind of genre for instance Viva is only comedy and MTV only shows music
Narrative Narrative is the way the product id produced and how it is put into order. There are different types of narrative. Open, closed, multistrand, alternative and investigative.
Open Open narrative will leave you thinking what will happen next or a continuation from a series or a replay. Basically open narratives are cliff-hangers like when a show ends but they leave a lot of information untouched which leads you to thinking that there will be another episode. Closed Narrative A closed narrative is when a show is finished. There are no questions left hanging from the viewer and you can fully understand everything that has happened in the show.
Multi-strand Multi-strands are soaps and long running shows. The story of a show might run in the beginning, middle or end.
Alternative Alternative are difficult to spot they might go back through what happened before the present without the audience knowing it.
In TV the audiences ,viewers or you watched different types of genre in TV. We have Genre which are Comedy, Drama, Action, Soaps, Sci-fi , Horror, Documentary , Sports , Reality, News. All these Genre have their own Sub-Genre for example Comedy has Sit-coms , Stand up , Sketch , Anarchic Comedy Action-Comedy Black-Comedy Horror-Comedy Dramedy Parody/Spoof Romantic-Comedy Slapstick . We also have the Hybrid or mix comedy.