How Media Producers Define Audiences

Audience research is important because they allow the companies to build a picture of their audiences attitudes, knowledge, interests, preferences, or behaviours (By using psychographics and demographics). In building a picture of their audience it enables the companies to see which target audience their product will do best with and then they can market it towards that audience which will gain them the most money as they won't waste money on marketing campaigns aimed at the wrong audience.

Audiences are profiled based on a number of factors.
Simple demographic factors include age, gender, sexual orientation.
Psychographics categorises audiences based on their personalities, opinions, attitudes, interests, and lifestyles. The 4 C's (Cross Cultural Consumer Categorization) are a way to analyse lifestyles by assigning people into a certain group.




















Another factor companies take into consideration is Geo-demographics which is based on your location in the country. It is assumed by media producers that people in the same area will live through the same conditions and will therefore have similar demands and requirements.
Socio-economic status segments people based on their work experience and theirs or their families economic and social position compared to others. This can be based on income, education and occupation. 
A similar segmentation to this is NRS social grades which are a system of demographic classification used in the UK that was developed by the National Readership Survey to classify readers and is now used by other organisations as a standard for market research.
The grades use occupation to classify people to a grade, as shown below.

These grades are what is mainly used for audience profiling, as an example the profile of the target audience for Assassins Creed Syndicate would be similar to this one below:

The age of the players would range from teenage to 25.
The gender division is mostly males as the main character of the game is male, however there are females which enjoy the action type game such as this.
The socio-economic split would be from B to E because these are typically the types of people who would enjoy gaming.
The main occupations would be students who may have part time jobs.

The target audience for Downton Abbey would be quite different to this:
The age of the viewers would be anywhere from 30 to 60
The gender division would be an equal male/female audience due to both genders being represented in the program.
The socio-economic split would be AB as the characters represented are of higher class.
Their main occupations would be higher managerial jobs such as managers or principals.

Audiences can also be profiled based on the kind of things they like- this is split determined on whether they like Mainstream film, Independent film, or niche film.
Mainstream is commonly liked and is mass produced and distributed due to the popularity of it. Mainstream films are usually commercial successes- films such as The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, and the James Bond series. These films are simple to understand and are based upon a single stranded narrative. More often than not, these films use their stars to market the films and will commonly include product placement. These films have large scale marketing campaigns and a universal appeal.
Independent films are produced outside of the major film studio system and are known for having a complex narrative. These films go against Hollywood conventions and have a limited UK cinema release. These films usually do not have big stars in, however can sometimes provide a breakthrough for their cast or crew to work on bigger projects afterwards. The marketing on these films are limited and Word of Mouth is usually the most useful marketing. An example of an independent film is The Texas Chain Saw Massacre directed by Tobe Hooper in 1974, which was shot for around $140,000
Niche films are serious, independent 'art films' which are aimed at a specific market rather than a mass market audience. These films have targeted marketing campaigns.

Media producers carry out research into their audience by using both Quantitative and Qualitative research.
Quantitative research is data which involves numerical figures such as box office data and viewing figures.
For example, Gravity falls originally aired on Disney Channel as a trial show and has now been moved over to Disney XD Despite only reruns being aired the show still gets in the top ten data for the channel week after week, for example on the BARB website in the week ending 11 september the show was the 4th most watched with figures of 64000.
Another example is the box office data for Finding Dory; as Finding Dory has made $970,135,653 since it's release in June 2016, but had already made $135,060,273 on its opening weekend in the US.
Qualitative data is data which involves words such as a review.
Reviews are normally more based on opinion rather than facts since the reviewer themselves is an audience member when they watch the film, however they give people a taste of the film without spoiling too much but rather explaining the film- This is what the following extract of a review of Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children does.
'The grandfather has old black and white pictures of his friends from the home, all of whom seem vaguely freakish (one is actually invisible.) Jake is a likeable but gauche adolescent who works part time in the local supermarket. His parents fret about him and have sent him to a psychiatrist.'
Wikia is a website created for different films and TV shows with information inputted by audiences, including facts, characters, etc. Wikia has a forum section which is also another form of qualitative audience research as the producers learn what the audience are interested in with the film or TV programme and can take that into consideration when researching into sequels or next episodes. 

More forms of qualitative audience research include focus groups, questionnaires, and face to face interviews.