There are four theories of research: Primary, Secondary, Qualitative and Quantitate.
Primary research is when the producers would conduct the research themselves, the most used form of primary research is the questionnaire where the producers would ask questions relevant to the product and the audience. There are many places to conduct questionnaire research, on the street or in social areas where people of the target audience would spend time together. Focus Groups are another foam of primary research, I will put a link at the bottom of this post to another post that goes into detial in how focus groups effect a media product.
Secondary research is when the producer looks at research conducted by another person, a prime example of this for radio is RAJAR: Radio Joint Audience Research. This website allow the producers to check which radio show attract which age of audience and at what times they would listen.
Qualitative, this can be done thorough focus groups or by studying forums, this form of research may not result in a large amount of results but well detailed results.
Quantitate, this is the type of research that results on a large amount of results, this can be done by polls the results may not be detailed but this depends on the type of questions the researchers were using and the answers they were looking on.
Secondary research is usually found on RAJAR which gives the
percentage of the population listening on certain radio channels, average hours
of listening per head, and the average listening hours per person this would be
Quantative research. If you wish to create a more specific search criteria to
fit the target audience you would need to subscribe to the website.
The image is a speadsheet from RAJAR with the listerning figures with the options decided above.
The Ofcom report the information has been researched from
was published in April 2013, this report is Ofcom’s Radio: The Listener’s
Perspective. This report is on how people listen to radio and its role in a
changing media landscape.
Amongst other things it includes a breakdown of the age
groups including the target audience age group, what they prefer to listen on
the radio and the reason why they listen to those preferred options.
‘BBC Radio 1 was the first choice station for this age
group, valued particularly as a source of current and new music, as well as its
exclusive live sets, guests and celebrity news.’ Section 4.4.1 18-24 age group.
The report suggests that the 18-24 age group primarily
listen to radio for music and news for background listening.
This research is Qualitative, and from it I can tell that my
radio drama would be for an extremely niche market indeed, but because this
research is not my own I would need to do primary research of my own in order
of prove or dispel this idea.
Primary research has the advantage that those who conducted
it in this case the producers can verify this research as they have done it
themselves; secondary research has the problem where if it is not sourced
thoroughly enough then the information can be false, primary research can also
be tailored to fit a specific group on a specific subject.
Primary research would be thorough a questionnaire, this
could be done in streets, social areas that relate to the target audience or on
Facebook. A questionnaire has the advantage that it can be done quickly and
that it asks all the people involved the same questions to answer. E. g. A
questionnaire for a radio drama for the 18-24 age groups could be targeted at
people within that age range. A disadvantage of this is if the questionnaire is givien to
a small collection of people who are either in favour of the subject or
completely uninterested this would result in biased results. A problem with
using Facebook and other social networking websites is that it would be harder
know if the people who have filled in the questionnaire are the correct age.
Another method of a focus group which has a small number of
people discussing the subject this would result in Qualitative results. The
results would include in-depth opinions which would be useful in planning the
drama and its presentation. This can be helped with giving the group evidence
of the initial plans and possibly a sample recording or a pitch.
This is my Audience Profile on what I believe to be an average person to listen to my radio drama. The idea for this radio drama is based off "The Goon Show".
http://www.thegoonshow.net/
http://www.rajar.co.uk
http://wghkfmp.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/audience-feedback.html
You need to discuss how this type of research would be used to research target audiences for specific Radio Drama shows. You need to give actual examples and discuss actually places they would go to get this information. You need to do this to be able to hit the merit level for GC1.
ReplyDeleteThis is much better William you are now at a merit for GC1, this means you have a merit overal so good work.
ReplyDelete