Target Audience

In the media industry making sure that you are advertising and broadcasting your product is key for the product to make as much money as possible. There is a lot of background work which the public don’t know about which goes towards the television company’s get the right price for advertising.

An example of this is X Factor as this is one of the most popular programmes on television. On the final of X Factor last year, a 30 second advert would be worth £250000 as it will be watched by so many people. The advert just before the end of the advert break is worth £500000 as this is when most people turn back onto the channel. The companies who advertise at this time would only do so if they know the right audience for their product would be watching it. This is so that they don’t waste their money advertising to people who would have no interest in the product they are advertising. Most of the products and brands advertised at the ad break are family brands because this is the type of audience that would be watching.

There are companies which show the amount of viewers that a programme gets which are funded by the television companies such as Sky, so that they know how much to sell the adverts for and also whether the television programme is successful. The website that television uses to do this www.barb.co.uk. There are other companies like this which carry out this process for radio (Radio Joint Audience Research) and also one for newspapers (National Readership Survey and Audit Bureau of Circumstance).

Broadcasting is the way that media industries target there audience, by broadcasting their products on channels, newspapers and radio stations that have a wide range of diversity in their viewers. The opposite to this is narrow casting which is the opposite to Broadcasting and this is by selling your media product to a more specific audience. For example the sports channels on sky show all sports programmes and also the advertising shows predominately sports events or programmes because that is what what the viewing public will be interested in.

The proliferation in satellite television has resulted in a rise in the programmes using narrow casting therefore the target audience may not know about the programme that they would normally watch. This has meant that a lot of media industries use saturation which means that they advertise their product everywhere using radio, newspaper, other television channels and social network pages.

Demographics are specific areas in which people in society can be placed in. This helps the media industry in placing people in certain groups so they can make or advertise their media film to people who fit in the certain categories. The demographic categories that media industries use are:

·         Sex

·         Age

·         Social Grade

·         Working Status

·         Occupation

·         Marital Status

·         Children

·         Household tenure

·         Income

·         Education

Social Grade Chart

This is another way for media companies to narrow cast their products by working out who is actually watching their programmes and getting programmes produced which suit the viewing public. It allows companies to spend their money wisely in order for them to make the maximum profit.

A= These are people who are seen to be high up in society. E.g. Head teachers, Bankers, Brokers and Surgeons

B= These would be Teachers, Police Officers, Managers in shops,

C1= Normal shop working, receptionists etc.

C2= People who have manual jobs such as Plumbers and Electricians.

D= Labourers and people who are doing apprenticeships

E= Students, Unemployed and people on minimum wage

The Social Grade that we would be targeting with our music video would be grade E predominately as we fit under the category of students. As we fit under this category, we know what this group of people would be looking for and can supply this. Our Social Grade target is also targeted at a slightly higher age group which is up to the age of about 25. The categories that this audience would fit under would be D, C1, C2 and these people would have the roles in society of electricians, labourers, plumbers and normal shop workers.



Socio-Economic Values

Survivors- People who want security and like a routine

Social Climbers- Those who have strong materialistic drive and like status symbols

Care Givers- Those who believe in caring and sharing

Explorers- For whom personal growth and influencing social change are

From the use of the BARB, television companies would know what sort of people and the amount of people who are watching their programmes. This therefore enables them to start knew programmes which are similar to the already popular ones in order to keep their viewing figures up. The four categories above show four groups of people that media institutions can split their consumers into.

For example, people who fit under the ‘Care Givers’ category would be people with the nursing profession or someone who does a lot of charity work. This group of people stereotypically would be interested in programmes like Casualty and Holby City. This is clear that BBC has used the ‘Social Grade Chart’ to broadcast these programmes as they are very similar and on the same channel.

We have looked into where our target audience fits into the Socio-economic Values and we have picked two sections which are Explorers and Social Climbers. This is due to the fact that the music industry is a social aspect of society and these two section and the ones which care about the social aspects of life. Therefore we would be looking to please this area of society rather than the Care Givers or the Survivors who are interested in their well-being than media.

Abraham Maslow Hierarchy

Abraham Maslow is an American psychologist who created this ‘hierarchy of needs’ in which people in society can be placed into. He has the idea that everybody starts at the bottom of his hierarchy and you have to satisfy each layer before you are able to move up to the next one. He also believes that people never work their way through all of the layers, meaning that no one can satisfy all of their needs of life.

When deciding our target audience, Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs also needs to be considered. The area of Maslow’s hierarchy that we would need to look at would be Love/belonging and below because of the idea of the hierarchy. People who fit under the categories on a higher level would have achieved much more in their lives and would have their views on further achievement rather than a Hip-Hop music video.