Audiences

Passive audience member: Opposite to the Active member, not taking in the message just laying back and aimlessly taking in the media.

Active audience member: You are internalising the messages that are being put forward and thinking about them.

Mainstream Audiences: An audience that consumes a product that appeals to a wide range of groups and cultures.

Niche Audiences: The audience of a specialist interest media product that may only appeal to a small number of people or those who fall within a specific demographic.

Narrowcasting: Aiming programmes at specific and specialists 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 2005. Concerns mass vs niche products and audiences.

- Our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of "hits" (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail. Cost of production and distribution fall=now less need to lump products and consumers into one-size-fits-all containers.

Eg: Theory predicts that demand for products not available in traditional bricks and mortar stores os potentially as big as for those that are. Same true for video not available on broadcast TV on any given day, and songs not played on radio.
Basically, the potential aggregate size of the many small markets in goods that don't individually sell well enough for traditional retail and broadcast distribution may someday rival that of the existing large market in goods that do cross that economic bar.

BARB data: Broadcasters Audience Research Board. They collate viewing figures for all the major UK broadcasters such as BBC, ITV, Sky.

BARB data can then be used by TV companies to assess how well a TV series is performing-compared with previous series EG with rival shows on other channels.

Demographics: In which media producers study the breakdown of their target audiences based on variables in age, ethnicity, gender, economic status/class, level of education and lifestyle choices.

Psychographics: Profiling of audiences based on personal beliefs, values, interests and lifestyles.

Audience Needs:

Uses and Gratifications Theory: Assumes audiences actively seek out media to satisfy individual needs. It looks to answer 3 questions...
       
1. What do people do with the media
2. What are their underlying motives for using said media?
3. What are the pros and cons of this individual media use?

How do we consume media?
- Information (Finding out about relevant events and conditions in immediate surroundings, society and the world, learning, seeking advice on practical matters or opinion and decision choices)
- Personal Identity (Finding models of behaviour, gaining insight into ones self, finding models of behaviour)
- Integration and Social Interaction (personal relationships) (Gaining insight into circumstances of others; social empathy, Identifying with others and gaining a sense of belonging, having a substitute for real-life companionship, helping to carry out social roles)
- Entertainment (Escapism or being diverted from problems, relaxing, filling time, emotional release)
- Education
- Escapism

From this graph I can tell that most people watch the BBC.
The least watched channel in the Uk was AATW ltd.

From this, we can infer that the majority of people who watch TV are either families or older members of society, as the BBC produces content that would be loved most by these secrets of society.