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