Wednesday 31 August 2011

Market research: target audience...

'Children's television' can be considered as a rather vast age range. You have the programmes/channels aimed at younger viewers, such a Nick Jr, Cbeebies etc, then the older viewer's counterparts; Nickelodeon, CBBC, etc. So obviously there are a lot of age brackets to consider when thinking about target audience age for our piece.

Also, within these age ranges are subcategories; gender, hobbies, demographics etc. For example Disney channel have recently split their one main channel into two new channels. The first channel is focused on arguably the shows which would appeal more to a female audience, and the second is the more male audience orientated shows. Gender has such a massive impact when considering our target audience because obviously to achieve maximum fan-base, you want to try and include both genders equally. This is why Joe and I have decided that whatever gender our main character is, they will have an accomplice (family member or friend) of the opposite gender. In doing this, we are trying to include both genders. A good example of this in current children's television is Peppa Pig. The story lines heavily feature Peppa (a girl) but also her younger brother George (a boy).











TA: 4 - 7, both genders                                                        TA: 2 - 5, both genders












                                          TA: 'teen' girls                                                                                   TA: 'teen' boys        


It has become apparent that the younger children's programmes try to appeal more to both genders where as the older/teen programmes have a more specific gender-based following.

Joe and I have decided that our target audience will be children age 1-4 years old of both gender. (Obviously we understand that viewers not in our specific TA may watch the show, but it is crucial to have a TA in mind when creating a product, so you are able to cater for the TA's needs specifically. This is why we have chosen a quite small age range (1-4) because we feel if you try to broaden this (e.g. 1 - 7) your audience will possibly have conflicting needs and you can therefore not meet the needs of all your audience if they conflict heavily. We feel that trying to appeal to both genders however isn't such an issue. As I've previously stated, it is apparent that most younger shows appeal to both genders by featuring an accomplice to the protagonist of the opposite gender.)

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