This document discusses audience research methods used to better understand target audiences. It describes conducting research on audience segments based on demographics like age, income and education to learn their attitudes and behaviors related to issues. Audience measurement panels track online and mobile media usage. Television audience measurement provides reliable viewership data. Nielsen measures global TV viewing and accounts for viewers engaging with multiple platforms. Research methods discussed include surveys, interviews and analyzing ratings, psychographics and demographics to classify audiences.

1. AUDIENCE
RESEARCH
Nessrine Bouzidi

2. Introduction
• Audience research is defined as any communication research that is conducted on specific
audience segments to gather information about their attitudes, knowledge, interests,
preferences or behaviours with respect to prevention issues.
• These segments may be based on various grouping strategies such as:
• Race
• Ethnicity
• Age
• Education
• Family income
• The purpose of audience research is so that the producer can get a better insight of the target
audience. It’s important to create something that’s going to appeal to the right people. It’s a
vital part of the procedure as it’s time consuming and is a waste of money if the product is not
created they way expected.

3. Audience measurement panels
• Nielsen representative panels of Internet users provide browsing and streaming metrics
for online users. Using census-based measurement, we provide in-depth tracking and
analysis of site performance as well as information about audience consumption of,
and engagement with, streaming media.
• And for mobile media, we are pursuing on-device meter panels to record every
interaction users have with measurable mobile devices, which complement our robust
survey data.
• Finally, through single-source panels along with modelled databases, we measure how
consumers engage with multiple media platforms.

4. TAM (television audience
measurement)
• This a specialized branch of media research, dedicated to quantifying (size0 and
qualifying (characteristics) this detailed television audience information.
• It’s described as a reliable, independent and transparent audience measurement
system.
‘In order to provide a country or market with valid and reliable television audience data’
• Reliable TV audience information is required to evaluate and maximise the
effectiveness of this investment.
Advantages to television audience measurement:
• It provides advanced measurement solutions, rich demographic data that help clients
understand how consumers engage with media within and across all platforms.

5. Nielsen Practises
• Their aim is to deliver television data every day.
• ‘measures over 40% of the worlds TV viewing behaviour’
• Today, the typical home has multiple television sets and well over 100 channels from
which to choose. Likewise, the measurement technologies provided must constantly
evolve to keep pace with daily innovations in consumer electronics.
• With recent advances in electronics, viewing is no longer limited to the television set and
content is available on multiple platforms. Computers and mobile devices have joined
the television as places to view programming.
• A good example of this would be IPlayer and 4OD as they allow you to catch up on
programmes, however as a viewer you would still have adverts in between like you’d
watch it on television.

6. Ratings
• The percentage of potential audience members who are turned into a particular
programme station at a given time.
• Gross rating point – It measures the size of an advertising campaign or by a specific media or
schedule. The purpose of gross rating point metric is to measure impressions in relation to the
number of people in the target for an advertising campaign.
• Television rating point – provided to judge which programmes are viewed the most. Gives us
an index of the choice of what people watch regularly and the popularity of a particular
channel as this would be the most effective in advertising.
• Average audience rating: It reflects the average size of the audience on a minute-by-minute
basis (average size measured every 1 minute, 2 minutes etc.) throughout the length of the
program. This rating is very valuable to an advertiser because it tells most accurately the size
of the audience for the advertiser commercial.

7. Face to face interviews
• This method remains the most frequently used quantitative research method. It’s a very
accurate and reliable means of gathering data.
• This is a successful way in seeking opinions and feedback from your target audience.
• Market research is a curious business; respondents will also have questions about the
research being conducted. They will want to know who the information is for, and for
what purposes it will be used. Even if the study is confidential, the client will have
provided interviewers with appropriate answers to anticipated questions. It will be the
interviewers duty to take down these responses and answer all questions accordingly.

8. Questionnaires
• Surveys and questionnaires are great for getting a broad picture of your audience. As long as
they are designed carefully, you can create an overview of them and ask your potential
targeted customers a range of questions.
• By using a limited amount of open-ended questions, you can also get some more qualitative
feedback or insights on your product or advertisement. But before you rush into writing
questions, stop and think about what you’re trying to find out.
• You could also include multiple choice questions to give the person answering your survey
more of a variety.
• This method is effective for audience research as the process isn’t entirely long and it’s easy
to target people to answer the survey as they’d be the people who you’ve targeted your
advert towards.

9. Sources of information:
Rate cards
• Is a document provided by a newspaper or other print publication featuring the organizations rate
for advertising. Rate cards, usually are for guidance only because the actual charges vary greatly
according to the bargaining power or the advertiser.
• There are many websites and companies which sell rate cards or advertise them. This is because
they have already done the research to see which rate works the best in the media and on
television. Advertisers and companies looking to make a profit turn to the rate card to see how
much they will need to be spending to get their message across to consumers.
• Rate cards help the retailer understand what types of ad sizes, discounts and other advertising the
publication has to offer. When choosing a newspaper or print media, you can use rate cards to
compare ad rates based on circulation before you buy advertising space.
• IPC blanket license
• This is available to all independent production companies and producers making programmes for
primary broadcast in the UK.
• You’d have access to library of 600,000 premium quality music tracks to ensure your production
stands out and you have unlimited transmissions.

10. Research agency websites
• AQR – association for qualitative research
A company offering market research services to clients, comprising a group of
researchers and an administrative infrastructure. An agency may offer qualitative
research, quantitative research, or both.
• Mustard
We help clients to better understand how their brand is perceived versus competitors
and help clients measure and monitor their brand awareness and brand alignment. As a
‘full-service’ market research agency we offer expertise in all of the tried-and-tested
research methods – surveys, focus groups, depth interviews, etc. From design and
fieldwork delivery through to analysis, dissemination and action-planning.

11. Standard occupational classification
• This is used by the federal government agencies for colleting occupational data. It enables
the comparison of occupations across data sets. The standard occupational classification
doesn’t categorise industries or employers.

12. Skill Level Sub-major groups of:
SOC 2000 SOC 2010
Level 4 11 Corporate managers 11 Corporate managers and directors
21 Science and technology professionals 21 Science, research, engineering and
technology professionals
22 Health professionals 22 Health professionals
23 Teaching and research professionals 23 Teaching and educational
professionals
24 Business and public service
professionals
24 Business, media and public service
professionals
Level 3 12 Managers and proprietors in
agriculture services
12 Other managers and proprietors
31 Science and technology associate
professionals
31 Science, engineering and technology
associate professionals
32 Health and social welfare associate
professionals
32 Health and social care associate
professionals
33 Protective service occupations 33 Protective service occupations
34 Culture, media and sports occupations34 Culture, media and sports occupations
35 Business and public service associate
professionals
35 Business and public service associate
professionals
51 Skilled agricultural trades 51 Skilled agricultural and related trades
52 Skilled metal and electrical trades 52 Skilled metal, electrical and electronic
trades
53 Skilled construction and building trades 53 Skilled construction and building trades
54 Textiles, printing and other skilled trades54 Textiles, printing and other skilled trades
Level 2 41 Administrative occupations 41 Administrative occupations
42 Secretarial and related occupations 42 Secretarial and related occupations
61 Caring personal service occupations 61 Caring personal service occupations
62 Leisure and other personal service
occupations
62 Leisure, travel and related personal
service occupations
71 Sales occupations 71 Sales occupations
72 Customer service occupations 72 Customer service occupations
81 Process, plant and machine operatives81 Process, plant and machine operatives
82 Transport and mobile machine drivers
and operatives
82 Transport and mobile machine drivers
and operatives
Level 1 91 Elementary trades, plant and storage
related occupations
91 Elementary trades and related
occupations
92 Elementary administration and service
occupations
92 Elementary administration and service
occupations

13. Demographics
This is the statistical data of a population, especially those showing the average:
• Age and income
• Education
• Ethnicity
Demography is used widely in public opinion polling and marketing. Demographics tend to
describe the historical changes in demographics in a population over time.
One common way of describing audiences is to use a letter code to show their income
bracket:

14. Psychographics
• Psychographics require the use of demographics to determine the attitudes and tastes of a
particular segment of a population.
It’s the study of someone's personality and it values the following sectors:
Values, opinions, attitudes, interests and lifestyles
• This shows that psychographic studies of individuals can be highly valuable especially when
it comes to the fields of marketing and social research.
• When constructing audience research for a particular advertisement, they can be
contrasted and linked with demographic variables such as age and income.
When a relatively complete profile of a person or group's psychographic make-up is
constructed, this is called a psychographic profile. Psychographic profiles are used in market
segmentation as well as in advertising

15. Audience classification:
Age and Gender
• Age and gender shape the experience of television for audiences in the UK. It’s an important
factor in shaping how audience perceive television.
• Younger respondents are also more likely to describe the effect of television on
people/society as negative. Variation in programme choice is highly structured in terms of
age and gender, though the extent to which of these factors determine audience choice
varies greatly. Gender is the dominant factor in explaining preferences for some programme
types with age a secondary factor in several cases, while age is the explanatory factor for
other genres for which gender seemingly has little influence. Male audiences prefer sports,
factual entertainment, and culture programmes and female audiences reality TV/talent
shows, game/quiz/panel shows, chat shows, and soap operas. Older audiences prefer news,
documentaries, and wildlife/nature programmes, while music shows/concerts and
comedy/sitcoms are more popular with younger viewers.