Importance of Data Analysis

Media producers use research to help them find out about the following things: 

PRODUCT REACH - This is finding out the number of people consuming a media product (using, reading, watching playing etc). This is useful for things like setting advertising costs as a higher audience reach means companies can charge more to advertisers. 

Organisations that work in this sector are: 

Broadcasters Audience Research Board (BARB) and Radio Joint Audience Research (RAJAR) who collate audience figures for TV viewers and radio listeners respectively. 

Pamco (forming the National Readership Survey - NRS) collects circulation (how many copies distributed) and readership (estimate of how many readers a publication has) data for the magazine and newspaper industry companies. They also came up with the demographic categories we have already looked at.

 

Using Research to influence media planning and production

One way of understanding audiences and audience perception is through the analysis of data. Analysing data will help you understand trends, themes and different styles that audience members enjoy. You will need to be able to understand and analyse data to then see what trends or patterns you can pick out. For instance viewing figures on a Saturday night terrestrial TV will depend on age ranges and types of audiences. 

Using Research to deal with Competitors

Media producers constantly seek audience opinions about the products of their direct rivals to see if it can give them ideas about how to compete more effectively.  Again, in the digital age this is often done through social media and online surveys. Direct competitors are companies that work in the same media sector, often providing the same or similar content e.g. BBC and ITV, Microsoft and Sony, regional commercial radio stations, DC and Marvel.

Newspaper Circulation Figures

Looking at the data in the graph what are three things that it show us about the circulation of newspapers from 1956 to 2019

Think about:

What does it tell us about individual newspapers?

What are the common trends or patterns

Explain why these trends or patterns might be happening.

- theres a clear decrease or downwards trend 

What patterns, trends things do we learn from these two graphs

What advice would you give to newspaper companies in how to increase the readership of their newspapers with younger audience (both print and online)

- make a website to access the paper online

- make the paper in a sustainable way

TV Scheduling Task 

Looking at the TV shows top figures, plan a ‘best Saturday night of all times’ from 6 - 11PM

You need to get the best viewing figures you can and offer a range of different programmes to appeal to a wide audience

Best Saturday Night of All Time