The relationship between the media and the audience

							Essay Question: Explain the relationship between media products and their audience.

Answered by: Nathan Claree

Media Products have a strong link with their audiences. The type of product
being marketed will influence the type and size of audience it attracts.
Techniques used by media companies to get information about their audience
include people meters, radio dairies, and call out surveys – to name a few. The
media product is usually designed for its target audience, like The Edge’s
Morning Madhouse and movies like Monsters Inc.

Firstly, the media product is designed for its target audience. The media product
will have attributes that interest its target audience, such as topics, hosts, prizes,
etc. For example, The Edge’s Morning Madhouse is targeted at females aged 10-
29, who listen to popular music (top 40 chart), and who are interested in fashion
trends and celebrity gossip. Because of the target audience, the Morning
Madhouse has content that will keep the listeners interested in their product by
including context that will interest them. For example they have hosts that are
within the age of the target audience: Jay Jay, Dom, and Mike. The use of this
means the audience will find it easy to relate to them, because they are more
then likely to have the same view points. It is the same with movies like Monsters
Inc, they have young characters in the film in order to appeal to its young
viewers. These examples show that a media product must keep a relationship
with its audience.

Secondly, media companies use tools such as people meters, radio dairies, and
call out surveys to collect information on its relationship with the audience.
Ratings are very important for a media product, the better the ratings, the more
money they will make from advertisers. If a media product has low ratings, it runs
the risk of being cancelled because it is not fulfilling its prime objective, which is
to make money. This is why people meters, radio dairies, and call out surveys
are used, so they can monitor how well a media product is doing. People meters
are mounted onto television sets in a few selected houses around the country,
and represent what all the people in the country are watching. The people meter
records what channels are being watched, and multiplies them to see how many
viewers it’s getting. Radio diaries are sent to a selected group as well, and they
are required to fill out a radio dairy everyday for about 2 weeks. They must state
what station they were listening too, what they liked, and how long they listened
to the station etc. This takes about 15 minutes a day, and the person being
surveyed must be quite committed to making sure they fill it out everyday. A call
out survey is done at random, and a series of questions will be asked to the
person who answers the phone. These questions will uncover what people like
about certain media products, etc. All of these techniques explained show that a
media product must keep a good relationship with its audience in order to remain
on television or the radio.
Overall, media products must keep a strong relationship with its audience in
order to be successful. If it has a good relationship, it will attract viewers/listeners
and keep them.