Producers use audience research, market research, and production research to define their target documentary audiences. Audience research involves qualitative and quantitative methods to understand opinions and needs. Market research examines socioeconomic factors, psychographics, demographics, and more to identify the relevant market. Production research considers costs, viability, and content to tailor the documentary for its target size category. Broadcast rankings show documentaries declining in popularity relative to genres like soaps, sports, and talent shows, so producers research television preferences to match audience interests.

1. How the media producers in documentaries define their audiences?
When choosing the audience that they are going aim their documentary at produces use three
types of research; Audience research, There are two types of audience research; one is where
the audience is asked what they think about a certain product and this way you are able to make
your product better for the target audience; the other is where you find out who the target
audience is and how you could target them and create your products for their certain needs.
Qualitative audience research interacts with small numbers of individuals in order to gain a
detailed and high understanding of their opinions and experiences of the production. Whereas
quantitativeresearch interacts with larger numbered audience, qualitativeresearch provides
detailed responses from certain audiences members in conjunction with a particular production;
Market research, Market research is a highly important section that must be completed when
producing a product made by a business. There is a clear difference between marketing research
and ‘market’ research; this is because marketing means the process that is made whereas
market is the market that you look into. The research collects information which will help to
identify and investigate the necessary market. This could show the important factors of the
market research such as the market needs, size and competition, when discovering their market
research the producers will look at the categories such as socio-economic status which focus on
details such as what class they are for example whether it is upper class middle class or lower
class, psychographics categories which will look into what type of people are in the market such
as aspirers, main-streamers or individualists, the geo-demographics looks into the market
audiences regional identity for example whether they are cockney , Irish, Geordie or any other
region, and the category demographics which looks at the markets age, gender, sexual
orientation ; production research; there is many reasons for the use of production research,
reasons such as cost of media products, advertising partnerships, in relation to production of the
media product in itself, product research provides content for the product, research commercial
viability, plan product and post production, when looking into production research they will look
into the size category of the documentary looking at whether it would be mainstream,
alternative, niche or another category to see what they should include in their production so
that it would make the target audience want to see the documentary.After discovering their
ideal target audience from the research that they have completed the producers will look
further into detail as to how they can address their audience, including what interested them
into watching the documentary and what they would and wouldn’t like to see within the film.
The purpose of the research is so that before you present your product to the production
company you have all the relevant information related to the product you are appealing to
them, information such as target audience, likes, dislikes and other important links that could be
made to the consumers so they would enjoy the production more. Research can be used to
make sure that the final product is tailored to the right audience, by doing this research it
assures the production company does not waste money by targeting the wrong audience.
Another purpose of research is to find advantages over other competitors and businesses, it is
used to find out information such as the size of the market, and whether there are any needs for
the documentary, by researching into this before the producer makes the pitch to the
production company they can prove that a documentary like the one they are pitching will fit
into the market in both the audience and the competitors, from the research the producer will
be able to show the weaknesses, strengths, opportunities, and threats of their production. It can

2. also establish other competition within the market. There are seven different profiling
categories that producers look into when they are defining their target audience, they are;
Quantitative research, qualitative research, socio-economic status, psychographics, geo-
demographics, demographics, size. These seven profiling categories fit into a different section of
research whether it is audience research, market research or production research. Some
research methods that the producer may use to find out his target audience may include;
Questionnaires; by doing this he can ask direct questions to the public. Online forums; this
allows the producer to ask people all around the world questions on the documentary as well as
asking people local. Focus groups; by doing several focus groups with people of all different
ages, genders, and/or sexual orientations the producer will be able to see how people would
react to the idea. Research from the Broadcasters Audience Research Board show that in the
year 1981 only two documentaries where ranked in the top ten programmes of the year other
categories that were listed where two films, one chat show, one soap and four dramas; in the
years 1991 and 2001 there was zero documentaries listed on the top ten programmes of the
year, in 1991 other categories that where listed where two soaps, two dramas, two game shows,
two films and two sport shows and in the year 2001 other categories that where listed where
four soaps, one game show, three dramas and two sport shows;in 2011 only one documentary
was listed in the top ten programmes of the year other categories that appeared in the top ten
ratings where six talent shows, two soaps and one drama ; and in 2012 zero documentaries were
listed in the top 10 programmes of the year other categories that appeared in the ratings where
7 sport event shows, one concert and two talent show. This research shows that throughout the
years the rankings of documentaries have lowered, the most ranked categories seem to be
soaps, sporting event shows and talent shows. Research into the television show rankings would
help the producer to see what people like to see on television so that the documentary would fit
into the same genre as popular television. In conclusion to this I think that a documentary should
include the thoughts of the target audience and allow them to understand and get involved.