Comparisson of Target Audience Questionnaire Results

We are going to compare the results of our target audience questionnaires to see if we found the same results and to look at any similarities found.

Firstly we found that between the questionnaires the majority of the participants were females. This is very typical of a soap opera audiences as they are aimed mainly at females. We also found that range of ages interested in soaps was incredibly varied, from one survey finding the most popular age group to be 10 - 19 and another finding that it was 41 - 50. This is a very important factor we will consider because it means we will have to have a range of story lines and characters to appeal to all of these age groups. We will try and apply the uses and gratifications theory of personal identity to our soap opera so the audience will have a member of the cast who they can really relate to and sympathise with.

We found that with regards to occupation and demographic groupings, the participants ranged from groups E - C1. This includes people in retirement, students, semi skilled and unskilled worker, skilled workers, supervisory, clerical and junior managerial. This is quite a wide range of demographics but it is what we expected to find, we thought that soaps would be very popular within groups E - C1. This is because people with these jobs, will come home from work wanting to relax and unwind, by watching television and getting escapism from watching drama in someone elses lives.

When asking participants what their favourite existing soap opera was, we found that Eastenders was most popular. We believe this is because it is very appealing to a very wide audience. There is something for audiences of all ages and classes to relate to. It is also very widely advertised through the means of them media making very good use of posters and trailers.

We also asked whether audiences are influenced by viewing soap opera trailers. We found that the majority of participants said either yes or sometimes, particularly if a special episode was being advertised. This shows us that trailers can be effective if found interesting by the audience. Our trailer in a sense will be a special as it will be advertising a brand new soap, and hopefully this will enable use to gain a wide audience. This links in with our results regarding what first got people interested in soaps, which we found was trailers and word of mouth. This means that creating a trailer is likely to be effective in advert sing a new soap.

We found that the most popular time for soaps to be viewed was in the evening. We believe this is so due to a lot of people watching soaps whilst having dinner or after dinner. Also when people come home from work and want to unwind by watching something interesting on TV, they will want to watch something that will allow them to escape from their day to day life. This is where we would want the uses and gratifications theory of entertainment to be applied to soap, which says people will watch a piece of media to be entertained or to escape from day to day life.