Website Research: Interactivity

By looking at the websites for shows which are similar to my own product, I can analyse the interactive content and discuss the ways in which these appeal to the audience. As examples, I have investigated the websites for two popular E4 shows: Skins and The Inbetweeners.


Social Networking Sites
The target audience will use social networking sites for entertainment, so by including a TV programme within that platform of media, they are appealing to them through including the show in their daily lives and encouraging them to share the information with their friends.


Games and Quizzes
Websites offer interactive games and quizzes because the target audience will associate the TV programme with entertainment, adding a 'fun' element to the show/website. Quizzes especially reinforce the audience's knowledge of the show, which is gratifying for them to be a part of.

Comment Boxes
A website which includes comment boxes allows the audience to voice their opinion of the show with other fans. They also promote the show to the audience due to the positive comments of 'real people'.

Voting

Offering the audience the chance to vote on aspects of the programme is appealing because they will feel like they are contributing towards the quality of future episodes through voicing what they like/dislike currently.

 

Social Networking

Comment Boxes



Voting

Coursework Pitch and Final Intentions

Within our groups, each member individually created a pitch (with a working title) outlining ideas for our final piece, including a brief synopsis, genre, target audience, feasibility, as well as a moodboard, draft script, and character profiles.

http://www.slideshare.net/libbyeaton9/media-pitch-15262410




After viewing, analysing and discussing the qualities of each member's pitch, we finalised our intentions for our group production:

Primary Audience Research: Focus Group



As part of our primary audience research, our group decided to conduct a focus group following on from the results of our survey, consisting of 4 people within the target audience for our TV programme This qualitative information gave us a deeper insight into the likes/ dislikes, thoughts, and issues which the target audience has about similar TV programmes.

The video clips shown in the focus group can be viewed from the E4 website:
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/misfits/4od#3276015
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/skins/4od#3337855




We began by showing the group video clips of the first few minutes of 'Misfits' and 'Skins' which are both E4 programmes aimed towards the same age group as our own. We then asked for their feedback on their opinions of the clips, including which aspects they found engaging and what elements they would change. We will absolutely take this feedback into account in our pre-production to ensure our own programme appeals to the wants of a current audienc.
As an example, we found in our survey that 26 out of 36 people prefer a unique theme/song for the show. To find out more detail about this opinion, we asked the group to compare the two themes from the video clips shown. Their feedback was that they preferred 'Misfits' because it is more unique, edgy, and enthralling than 'Skins'. Taking this into account, we now have a more detailed idea of the audience's preferences in terms of the theme song.


As well as their opinions on existing programmes, we also voiced our initial ideas about our own production piece. The group responded by detailing the good/bad qualities and asked them to describe the characters which they would most like to see. One opinion included the promotion of a strong female protagonist. This was a valuable piece of feedback because now we have the knowledge that this would be popular with the audience and we should incorporate this particular idea into our show.
To illustrate this idea further, we found out in our survey, that 21 people out 36 prefer to see relatable locations in a TV programme. To expand on this point in greater detail, we asked the group for their thoughts on setting our own show in a college. The response was that the group would find this interesting and entertaining to watch, and further suggesting we should include locations of a college which wouldn't conventionally be shown on TV or even in real life situations e.g. toilets.

Primary Audience Research: Survey Results

As a group we conducted a survey, asking the target audience of our TV programme to detail their preferences of various aspects of: genre, character, location, narrative, and music. Here, I will provide a summary of our results which will be the criteria for creating our TV programme, however the full results and figures can be found (downloaded)  here.


Results

Genre:

- Thriller

- Drama

- Comedy

Characters:

- Aged 16-20

- Working class

- Group of main characters

- Mixed genders and ethnicities

- Informal language

- Scripted dialogue

- Specific accent

Location:

- 3-4 locations

- Urban

- Relatable/recognisable

Narrative:

- Complex

- Closed ending

- Non-linear

Music:

- Rock

- Indie

- Dance

- Small amount of non-diegetic

- Unique theme song

Secondary Audience Research: Skins

As part of my secondary audience research, I will analyse the audience profile and narrative structure of the  E4 show, Skins. I will also discuss the veiwing figures and reviews from the audience to support the popularity of the programme with the audience.

Audience Profile:

E4's demographic is described as a 16-34 years old, 'cutting edge young audience' (source: E4 website) however I believe that Skins appeals to a more specific age group: 16-22 because they are more likely to be able to relate to the lifestyles, themes, and issues of the characters in the prgramme, who are students and yung adults themselves. However, saying this, it is possible that a slightly older audience will be likely to relate to the violence, alcohol, and drug use which is often included in Skins.


Narrative Structure:

Skins deals with cultural themes and issues of a young person's life, ragning from alchol and drug use, to mental health, and problems with frendsips and relatonships. The element of drama in Skins means that the episodes are often open ended; they end on a 'cliffhanger'. An episode will therfore not follow a conventional equilibrium structure (equilibrum, disruption, recogition, repair, new equilibrium) because may of the issues being dealt with remain unresolved. This is most likely due to the intended realism as well as dramatic intensity which is aimed for in Skins.


Viewing Figures:

When Skins first debuted in 2007 they collected 1.41m viewers. Subsequent series debuts saw the audience dip to 909k (2008) and 665k (2009) before lifting to 913k (2010) falling again to 823k (2011) and plumeting to 549k in it's most recent series (2012).

Source Figures: BARB January 2012

These figueres are shown in the graphs below as well as the viewing figures for each episode of the most recent series. In both of these graphs, a loss in viewers is clearly shown.

 

Reviews:

The decrease in viewers over the seasons could be due to the fact that Skins changes it's cast each season, meaning that the fans of the previous characters will be dissapointed with the change and stp watcing. Similarly, the decrease in viewers just accross season six could be a result of the audience being unable to engage with the new characters. 

One particular review  which I have found supports this by explaining that the events/narraive ''overwhelm the episode somewhat, allowing less time for character moments and humour.'' further saying ''not enough has been seen of them [new characters] to pass judgement.'' (Source)

From this, I can draw the conclusion that it is important to focus on the introduction of the characters in the first episode, in order to maitain a connection between character and viewer throughout the episde and series. The reviews indicate that this is exactly what Skins should have done to maintain te hig viewing figures of the early seasons.

Other reviews which detail the likes/dislikes of Skins:
http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/skins-episode-1-season-6-review
http://www.denofgeek.com/tv/skins/10225/skins-series-5-episode-1-review