Analysis of Audience Research

What is your gender?

‘1’ refers to female, and as the pie chart shows, this was the most prominent gender in our results. Implying that the questionnaire is biased towards females, with a 62% proportion in comparison to the male’s 38%. This may result in a slight siding with more feminine aspects in the documentary, perhaps such as colour scheme, and maybe that the documentary topic is more interesting to females.

How old are you?

There’s a relatively even distribution around the ages, and as our target audience is aged approximately between 19 and 30, this is helpful knowing that the documentary topic appealed to them, especially with only 5 answering ‘Other’. However, there’s a 35% prominence for the age range ’26-29’, suggesting that this selection of people ought to be our primary - most prominent - target audience and so their answers to the following questions would be significant.

How much have you spent on your obsession?

This question allows us to have an insight into the mind of those with obsessions, as well as providing us with primary statistics to use in the scripting of our voice over for the documentary. The option with the majority – 38% - of answers is £20 or less, which allows us to see the usual severity of an obsession with those who answered – mostly female, 26-29 year olds. This also, however, indicates that they may not be familiar with severe obsessions and so it would likely benefit the documentary to have a professional speak about it.

What channel do you watch the most regularly?

This allows us a deeper understanding of what channels our target audience watch, and so can then assist us in choosing a scheduling slot that’s appropriate. From the pie chart, you can see ITV1 is the most watched channel, with 42%, and in second place is Channel 4 with 27%. This implies that our target audience would be slightly more educated – which was our initial aim.

What colour scheme do you prefer?

The aforementioned female bias may have some effect on the universal reliability of this question, however this question allows us to choose a colour scheme which will appeal to our audience and therefore maintain a large number of views if we were to choose hammocking for our scheduling. The most commonly chosen collection of colours was Purples/Greens/Black, with 27% suggesting darker colours would be preferred for the topic choice.

How negatively do you think obsessions are portrayed in

the media? This question was a scale with a slider from 1 to 10, 1

being negative and 10 being positive. The average choice is 3.89 and so rounded up is 4 suggesting that the public believe that obsessions are portrayed negatively. This forebodes a possible opportunity to portray them in quite a positive way in order to fill a niche in the market, so to speak.

Have you ever had an obsession? This question is self-explanatory, this data will allow us to

have primary statistics in our documentary and leads on from the previous question to an extent, because the majority – 56% - answered yes and so it implies that obsessions are common occurrences. So the negative perception of the media is affecting a majority of people.

Name one of your obsession(s)..

This question was a type box open question, allowing the audience complete freedom. In total, there were 15 different answers, ‘N/A’ was one of the 15 answers given and was given 4 times – the most repeated of all of them – suggesting that although 56% of the public have obsessions, they’re embarrassed to say and so links in with the media’s portrayal question; allowing us to dictate the style/tone of the documentary accordingly.

Do you have a current obsession? This will, again, provide us with statistics to use within

the documentary as part of our primary research. 54% of the audience answered no to having a current obsession, which suggests that because it was mostly filled in by those between the age of 26-29, that obsessions are mainly had by younger people.

Would you prefer a female or male voice over for a

documentary? 60% of the sample chose a male voice over rather than a female, and this could be due to it being the common convention rather than having a female; male voice overs often sound more serious and so this would suggest that the audience are looking for a serious voice over – no jokes, etc.

What time do you normally watch TV?

This question is essential to assist us with the scheduling – as we’re aiming for hammocking – in connection with the channel question. This would suggest that we should time it for around 8-9pm, perhaps due to our target audience all being in work, or further education.

Do you like fast pace editing? The majority – 58% - of the audience answered yes, which

perhaps links into their age. Fast editing will attract their eye when the documentary is hammocked between two other popular shows.

What kind of music do you listen to?

In this question, the two dominating options is Rock and Pop, both with 6 votes. This would suggest that we should use music from these two genres in order to pull the attention of the target audience, as they would’ve been working/in some form of education and so would be relaxing – music that they enjoy would assist in that and maintain their attention on the documentary.

How long has your longest obsession lasted?

This question allows us to understand the extent of our audience’s obsession, and also gives us even more primary research to take statistics from. 40% of our audience answered that their obsession lasted more than 3 months, which shows a severity that the question on how much they had spent did not.

Would you be interested in Obsessive Compulsive

Disorder to be featured in the documentary? The majority – 56% - of our audience answered yes to

this, which would indicate that the audience is looking for us to feature severe obsessions perhaps due to their own

– shown through the amount they spend on their own – being relatively toned down. This now tells us that we

need to bring the professional aspect of obsessions into this, to meet our audience’s needs.

Would you want us to interview a professional?

This question obviously links into the analysis of the last question, as 60% of our audience answered yes, telling us

to interview a therapist or psychotherapist in order to bring our audience’s views in by appealing to what

they’re looking for in a documentary. Due to us targeting slightly more educated people, this would therefore

appeal to them and speak to them in a more scientific way which is appropriate for the audience.

Do you consider ‘fandoms’ to be an obsession?

This question allows us to research their desired content, and so therefore fit what they’re looking for. Fandoms are considered slightly teenage, and so the reaction of 52% saying no is expected but allows us to confidently cross the content off of our list knowing it does not fit our target audience nor would they enjoy it.

Do you consider obsessions to be a mental illness?

This links into the question about interviewing the professional, as we now know that they do want a professional to be interviewed and so this answer of 48% being neutral suggests that they aren’t sure and so need a professional to teach them about it – due to being more educated, they’d therefore want a trained professional rather than an amateur.

Would you want us to focus on a particular obsession and

what would that be? This question is in two parts, a and b, as the first part

asks whether there’s any particular focus they’d like, which 56% answered no to, suggesting that there’s a lack of understanding about obsession and so they had no knowledge to offer – hence why we’ll interview a professional, to give them bonafide knowledge. This then links to what obsession, obviously followed by the part b, which although was mostly replied to with N/A, the second most common obsession to focus on was OCD which links back to the question on OCD.

Do you prefer documentaries to have statistics in them? This is another question focusing on the content of the

documentary, this makes it clear to us – with a 46% majority votes – that statistics would be favoured in it,

which clearly links to the educated nature of the audience; they’re educated and so would require data to back up the points that we make, otherwise they likely

wouldn’t be interested in the documentary.