The document provides details from Grace Gilbert's audience research for a documentary project. It outlines research conducted on the viewing habits and interests of 16-24 year olds related to documentaries. Key findings include that 16-34 year olds are the second most common group to watch documentaries after 35-54 year olds. Additional research with surveys and charts show that this age group prefers feature-length documentaries on Netflix and are interested in topics like crime, science, and environmental/social issues. Primary research with a survey of 10 people confirmed that music and interviews should be included and that the target audience prefers a simple documentary style.

1. AUDIENCE RESEARCH
Grace Gilbert

2. Audience Research
My target audience is 16-24, I have started off
looking at what percentage of this age bracket
watch documentaries. This research is a study
that took place in Canada and it suggests that
the age bracket 16-34 are the second most
common group to say that they watch
documentaries after the majority being ages 35-
54, another key finding is that the majority of the
people who answered were female so they
either prefer watching documentaries or they are
more likely to answer a survey
This chart suggests that 52% of 16-34 year olds
are watching more documentaries than they
have before. Something that I need to find is
what sort of documentaries does this age bracket
like to watch and what interests them

3. This bar chart shows what percentage of each age bracket
prefers which style of documentary. This study is relevant to
Canada however it gives me a brief idea into what this age
group are interested in. I am focusing on the age bracket 16-24
or in this case on the bar chart 18-34, this chart suggests the
majority of this age bracket prefer to watch documentary
feature length movies compared to only 58% wanting to watch
short film documentaries which is closest to what my style of
documentary is. However this is still quite a lot of people in that
age bracket to be interested in the style of documentary.

4. According to TV licensing almost half of the
teens in the UK use Netflix. I think looking
at the Netflix documentaries and their
target audiences is going to be beneficial to
finding out what interests the age bracket
16-24
This chart shows the answers to a question
that was asked. ‘Which network/sources
would you keep if you could only keep
some?’ 59% of 16-34 year olds answered
with Netflix, compared to only 35% in the
35+ age category. From this I can infer that
the majority of the younger audience prefer
watching streaming sites such as Netflix. I
want to look into some of the documentaries
that Netflix offer and see if there is a similar
theme between them

6. I have put together a mood board looking at all the different types of documentaries that
Netflix has to offer, and I picked out the ones that are listed as most popular. This is
relevant to my audience research because Netflix's target audience is aiming towards
18-49 year olds and the age bracket that I am looing at falls near enough in this
category. Some of the documentaries I have come across involve crime documentaries,
there are a few that look at our planet for example ‘The Universe’ and ‘Our Planet’ these
look at what issues are facing our world especially in ‘Our Planet’ where they look at the
animals that are endangered and how climate change is affecting their habitats etc.
Additionally there are a few that have a subject for example ‘Whose Vote Counts’ then
they have explained underneath, and Netflix’s description of this is ‘The right t vote is at
the foundation of America’s democracy. But not every vote is created equal. How does
the system work, and can it be fixed?’ These types of documentaries look at issues and
then explain them, and this is similar to the layout for my short documentary because I
am looking at the issue of being indecisive and I’m explaining it, this is similar to one of
the documentaries on Netflix called ‘The mind explained’ however mine is more focused
on one subject. This suggests that the short documentary I’m making will appeal to my

7. I have decided to look at ITV next, and looking
under their ‘Booth Youth Tracker’ there was a
question which was asking them how often you
watch videos on YouTube, then the results were
split into two pie charts: one under 16-24 year
olds and then the other being all respondents.
Under the 16-24 it shows that 47% of answers
said they watched YouTube daily
This bar chart shows the results to a question
asked ‘What if any of the following activities do
you like to do in your spare time?’ it has split the
results into two categories 16-24 year olds and
then all respondents. Looking at the results it
suggests that 80% of 16-24 year olds listen to
music during their free time, this is relevant to my
documentary because it is aimed at this group and
to appeal to this group I have to include their
interests, and to do this I can add some music in
my documentary. Additionally 78% of 16-24 year
olds said they watched videos online so this
suggests that after listening to music the majority
of this age group watch videos

8. This chart shows the results of the question ‘Which if any of the following
do you think are the biggest issues facing young people in the UK at the
moment?’ the most recent one (Wave 4 Aug 19) suggests that 73% of 16-
24 year olds think mental health is the biggest crisis with house prices
following. However the mental health is relevant to the subject of my
documentary because I plan on talking about certain mental health issues
and how they contribute to the issue of indecisiveness, and this will make it
more relatable to this age group if they believe that mental health is one of
the biggest issues in the UK

9. Audience Research
The next part of the research is to look at the social
status. I think that my documentary can apply to all
these social classes however I am discussing certain
parts of the brain and other psychological content so
this requires educated thinking, so it might not appeal
too much towards E. However in the E category it
mentions ‘Students’ and my target audience will fall in
this range so my documentary might appeal to some
people under the E category however it will probably
appeal much more to C1 and above.
https://mahbubulfoundationproduction.wordpress.com/2014/03/07/dem
ographics-incomplete/
The next part of the research is looking at
psychographics and this is used to describe someone’s
traits, it looks at a person’s values, attitude and
lifestyle. In regards to my documentary I think the
‘Explorers’ psychographic is relatable to my
documentary because I think this describes the
younger demographic which is what my target
audience is. Additionally it might also appeal to those
under the ‘Aspirers’ because this is used to describe
the majority of younger people however I don’t think
this group would be as interested in my documentary
as the ‘Explorers’ would be.
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-
v8jweHVy2H4/TXo1ShktBqI/AAAAAAAAIPI/pZmslMA7Dto/s

10. Primary Research
For my primary research I am going to conduct a survey for people to
answer, I am going to ask a few questions that will help me understand
what the age group 16-24 years are looking for when it comes to a
documentary. I plan on asking around 10 people because then I can
gather a lot of data for each question
1. How old are you?
2. What do you expect from a documentary?
3. Do you expect there to be music in documentaries?
4. Would you prefer a simple documentary or one that includes
interesting editing/effects?
5. Which gender do you identify with?
6. Would you prefer a documentary in color or black and white?
7. Do you like watching documentaries?

11. Survey Analysis
Using social media I have sent my survey out to a few people as I am only
wanting around 10 answers, I sent it out to multiple age groups because this will
allow me to see how people who are aged 16-24 are interested in something
compared to someone who’s 30. I also asked the gender question because I
want to decide which ender to aim my documentary towards and working out the
results will help me do this because I can look at every individual response
My first question I asked was ‘How old are you?’ this was one of the
most important questions because I needed to narrow it down to my
target audience, however there was one response that was 35+ so this
will cause an anomaly in my results. On surveymonkey.com I can see
what else that person answered for and take this out of my results

12. These are the individual responses the
person who answered 35+ is and I will
take these into account for when looking
at the results all together

13. I asked this question because I wanted to know whether to
conduct interviews or not, and I will because the results show
that 7 people thought there should be a mix between information
and interviews, and only 6 people thought they should be full of
information and take into account the older person responding
with they should be full of information would take the result down
to only 5 16-24 year olds think they should be full of information

14. I was wondering whether or not to include music in my documentary and
the majority of answers were ‘yes’ with 11 people answering with ‘yes’ and
only one 16-24 year old answering ‘no’. This is also useful because the
person who is aged 35 and over has helped me realize what I need to
include to make it appeal more to my target audience

15. I included this question because I wanted to know whether to use interesting
editing or to keep it simple, and this suggests that it should be simple
however if I take the 35+ answer out then it is 50/50 so when it comes down
to post production I am going to see what is going to look better and I might
compromise them both to see what it looks like

16. I never had a particular gender that I was aiming my documentary towards
so I decided to include this question, the majority of the people who
answered were female so whether or not women are more likely to answer
surveys than men might be the case so I am going to look at the individual
responses and see if they answered yes or no to the last question

17. I incorporated this question because I wanted to know whether I should
make the filler shots in black or white or in color, however I did use the option
both and the results are pretty similar so I think I am going to include a bit of
both and see what the final result will look like

18. This was my final question because I thought it would help me see if my target age
group like documentaries and the majority answered yes. Also it would help me realize
which gender prefer documentaries and this will help me aim my documentary
towards a certain gender , one of the people who answered ‘no’ said their gender was
no, and the other person was female, so I can’t really aim my documentary towards a
particular gender because the majority of responses were female anyway, and I would
have to have the same amount of people from each gender to have an even result

19. Primary Research - Conclusion
From this research I have a brief idea of what my target audience are
looking for, they expect music to be in a documentary which is
something that I will include at certain points and I have also seen that
they want a simple made documentary that doesn't have too much
interesting editing techniques however I think an interesting question
would be to ask why because then I can use the interesting editing
without including their reason. Furthermore the majority of answers
expect there to be a mix of information and interviews, which is
something I was planning o doing anyway, although it would have been
beneficial to ask the question why again because then I could have met
their expectations of what they think this style includes

20. BIBLIOGRAPHY

21. Bibliography
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3. Iqbal, M. (2020). Netflix Revenue and Usage Statistics (2020). Available:
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