Audience Data/Profile – These contain the following information: age, gender, ethnicity and interests of a sample of people. They are useful as you can research into what a particular section of the market look for in television/media.
Audience Awareness – This is a type of interaction associated with the use of audience response systems, to create interactivity between a presenter and their audience. An example of this is a hand held remote called a ‘clicker’, which are used in schools for students to convey their responses to a question.
Product Reach – This is how far a programme is broadcasted. For e.g. Friday world is broadcasted as far as the main hall in school whereas Coronation Street is broadcasted all across the country.
Consumer Behaviour – This is the study of how people react to film/television. For example if the film is of a horror genre, you would expect the viewer to be tense and on edge whereas a film with a more sad, dramatic genre, the viewer to be more relaxed and possibly upset too.
Competitor Analysis – This is an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of current or potential competitors. This is important as then different broadcasting companies can see how one another are doing. For example if 'Emmerdale' get an exceptionally high viewing rate on a particular day through the week, then Eastenders might decide to change their broadcasting time to that of 'Emmerdale's' and try and take over their viewers.
BARB (Broadcasters' Audience Research Board) is a well-known market research organisation that provides the measurement of UK television audiences throughout the television industry. These measurements include which channels and programmes are being watched, at what time and the type of people watching. Below you will find the viewing figures of the top 10 programmes watched on the Disney Channel.
Production Research
When setting up a production, it is important to research the different content needed to make it successful.
It is important to research the type of content so that they production team know that what is produced will be effective as it is what people want. The personnel are an important factor in production as they are the people that make it possible, such as camera people, sound and lighting, make-up, costume etc. Without these the ‘talent’ side of the production would not be successful. The talent are the people on screen for example the presenters of ‘Friday World’ are the talent/stars of the show.
As well as this it is important to take into consideration the cost of production. Production teams have budgets that have to be stuck to therefore they need to spend their money wisely. For e.g. not paying to use a camera for a whole day when they only need it for a couple of hours or so. Or in some cases, if they are going to buy their own cameras they need to make sure that what they are paying for is worth it. Also they have to pay for their personnel and talent.
Another important factor to think about is time. For e.g. if ‘Friday World’ want to broadcast one of their shows from somewhere out of school, they need to work out how long it will take to get there so they know what time to set off to get there and start broadcasting in time for the show to be viewed back at the school hall.
Below is an example of the costs of different factors involved in ‘Lone Peak Productions’ company.
References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_research
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_behaviour
