Audience: Passive or Participant.
It has often amazed me how TV stations worth billions of dollars rely on such a small sampling of viewers to estimate who and how many people are watching their programs.
OZ tam which is the service used in Australia to determined ratings figures, receives data from Nielson TAM. Which uses 3,035 ‘panel homes in all capital cities and 1,395 homes nationally for subscription television (
oztam.com.au).
While I’m sure the science is correct in establishing that these small audience numbers can be translated into the viewing figures of the overall population. It does make you feel somewhat insignificant as an individual viewer. As your presence and how you react to the content is really just estimated.
Kind of makes you feel like a robot right?
(http://fooyoh.com)
Sue Turnbull (2010) points out that most media audiences don’t exist. They are not visible and don’t provide feedback in the way you can view at comedy performances or football matches.
However, while television stations and programs rely on viewership to stay alive. Their interactions with their audiences are changing with the development of new technologies. These technologies are allowing the viewer to choose when and where to watch a program, how they want to watch it, with whom they watch it and the ways in which they can respond to certain media (Turnbull, 2010).
Social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, Youtube allow and encourage feedback. Twitter for instance has been used by a wide range of people from Ashton Kutcher to the Libyan rebels spreading evidence of atrocities in their homeland. While again there is a challenge of actually knowing who the audience of a Twitter account is. It can provide feedback, create discussion and facilitate the flow of ideas much better than simply estimating an audience (Marwick, A & Boyd, D., 2010).
Audience however are necessary when networks come to deciding the funding for a program. If they can’t sell advertising they can’t justify the product.
Developing a deeper understanding of audiences and studying them will allow a greater understanding of what media is successful and why.
Do you think a television program should operate and change things based on audience feedback?
How powerful do you think a Television Audience is?
How do you think television ratings should be collected ?
http://oztam.com.au/AboutOzTAMRatings.aspx
Marwick, A & Boyd, D., 2010, ‘I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately: Twitter users, context collapse, and the imagined audience’, New Media & Society, February 2011; vol. 13, 1: pp. 114-133
Picture http://fooyoh.com/menknowpause_lifestyle_living/4900625
Turnbull, S., 2010, ‘Imagining the audience’ In S. Cunningham & G. Turner (eds) The media and communications in Australia. (3rd ed.) Sydney: Allen & Unwin. Pp. 65-78.
