Unit 6 Critical Approaches to the Creative Media Industry. Class Task: Audience Research Platforms By Natasha Curry

BARB (Broadcaster’s Audience Research Board) BARB (used to gather broadcast viewership data) Uses a carefully selected panel of private homes, these homes will have a meter fitted to every TV in the home. Each member of the household will then be given a designated button on a special remote, which they must press anytime the enter a room in which a television is on, they must press their button again when they are leaving. This allows BARB to see who is watching, what they are watching, for how long and how often. This type of research is known as quantitative research, this is because the information gathered is numerical data. This can be used to determine audience viewership ratings.

BARB Examples

RAJAR (Radio Joint Audience Research) RAJAR (used to gather audience listenership data for radio stations) Non-profit organisation that operates on a calendar year basis. The data is collected by placing a 7 day self completion diary in each selected household with one selected adult (15+) and up to 2 children (10-14 years). Each selected household will be asked to sort through place cards and select the radio stations in which they would listen to or may listen to in various situations. The data collected is then posted quarterly for contracting stations. Like BARB, RAJAR is also quantitative research as the information collected is numerical data and can be used to determine listenership for radio stations.

RAJAR Examples

ABC ( Audit Bureau of Circulation) ABC (used to determine the way advertising is traded in the media industry in both broadcast and print, throughout the UK). ABC gather their information through social classification. This means people are grouped together depending on their social class/career. The classification groups include: Group A - Lawyers, Doctors, Scientists & well paid Professionals Group B - Teachers, Middle Management & fairly paid Professionals Group C1 - Junior Management, Bank Clerks, Nurses & White Collar Professionals Group C2 - Electricians, Plumbers, Carpenters & Blue Collar Professionals Group D - Manual Workers such as: Drivers & Post Sorters Group E - Students, Unemployed & Pensioners Data collection through social classification allows ABC to understand what groups of people will be watching or reading & certain types of programmes or magazines, this allows them to inform advertising companies of the best places to advertise. The research that ABC conduct would be known as qualitative research, this is because it is conducted through each groups personal preferences for programmes and reading material. However ABC can also be catagorised as quantitative research as the data is presented as numerical.

ABC Example