The Audience and The Feedback

Pertemuan 25 - 26

Matakuliah : O0394 – Teknik Reportase dan News CasterTahun : 2010

Learning Objectives

Media communication cannot be separated

from its audience and feedback. This section

will discuss audience and feedback with focus

on a couple of factors: (1) framing to which

viewers the programs are assigned, and (2)

measuring the rating of the audience.

3

Framing the Audience

How the word ‘Audience’ should be defined?

The word ‘audience’ is familiar as the collective

term for the ‘receivers’ in the simple sequential

model of mass communication process (source,

channel, message, receiver, effect)

Allor (1988): “The audience exists nowhere; it

inhabits no real space, only positions within

analytic discourses.” 4

Framing the Audience Audience can be defined in different ways: by place (as in the

case of local media), by people (as when a medium is

characterized by an appeal to a certain age group, gender,

political belief or income category), by particular type of

medium or channel involved (technology and organization

combined), by the content of its messages (genres, subject

matters, styles), by time (as when one speaks of the ‘daytime’

or ‘primetime’ audience, or audience that is fleeting and short

term compared with one that endures).

5

Framing the Audience

Audience are both a product of social context

(which leads to shared cultural interests,

understandings and information needs) and

a response to a particular pattern of media

provision;

6

Audience-Related Issues (1/4)

Certain issues towards audience, media, and

their behavior

Media use as addiction

Excessive media use has often been viewed as

harmful and unhealthy, leading to addiction,

dissociation from reality, reduced social contacts

and diversion from education; with television as the

most usual suspect followed by video games and

computers;7

Audience-Related Issues (2/4) Audience behavior as active or passive

Audience as mass is passive since it is incapable of

collective action; individual acts of media choice,

attention and response can be active in terms of

degree of motivation, attention, involvement,

pleasure, critical response, connection with the rest

of life. There is a tendency, whether explicitly or not,

to view active media use as ‘better’ than passive;

8

Audience-Related Issues (3/4) Alternative media perceptions of the audience

The audience can be approached in normative and

relational terms with a genuine communicative

purpose: its composition, its engagement with

communicators and content, the quality of attention

and response, its loyalty, its commitment and

continuity;

9

Audience-Related Issues (4/4) The implications of new media technology

The pros and contras on the implication of new media

technology towards audience:

- more freedom and diversity of communication and

reception;

- the audience will be more fragmented and will lose their

national, local or cultural identity;

- there will be an increasing gap between the media rich

and the media poor.

10

Why so Important…Why is it important to know your audience

- Accounting for sales

- Measuring actual and potential reach for purposes of

advertising

- Manipulating and channeling audience choice behavior

- Looking for audience market opportunities

- Product-testing and improving communication effectiveness

- Meeting responsibilities to serve an audience

- Evaluating media performance in a number of ways

11

Rating the Audience (1/4)The rating process

Measuring TV viewing

A research company will conduct a set of research activities on

television viewers. The random samples are collected from

household. Four times a year the information is collected and that

measurement period is called “sweeps”.

The measurement results will be used by local stations to determine

advertising rates.

12

Rating the Audience (2/4) Processing the data

The data collected by the research company then processed

overnight and made available for customer access the next day.

The ratings books

Each rating books contain demographic information of the

audience, and technical problems the stations may have during

the rating period.

13

Rating the Audience (3/4)There are 3 (three) terms and concepts used in television rating:

1. Household using television (HUT)

The number or the percentage of households that have a television set

during a specific time of period.

2. Rating

The percentage or proportions of all households with a television set

watching a particular program at a particular time. A rating of 10 means that

10 percent of all the homes in the market were watching a specific program.

Ratings consider all households in the market not just those with tv set in

use.

14

Rating the Audience (4/4)

3. Share of the audience (share)

The total number of household watching a particular program

at a specific time divided by the total number of households

using television. The share is based only on those households

that actually have their TV sets turned on.

Some programs can have the shame share but have different

ratings.

15

Calculating the Rating (1/2)

The formula for calculating rating and share

Ratings: Number of households watching a program

Total number of households in market

Share: Number of households watching a program

Total number of HUT

16

Calculating the Rating (2/2)For example:

There are 1,000 households in the market. At 18 pm

100 of those 1,000 households have their TV sets on.

Of the 100 households, 20 are watching “Evening

News”.

Rating: 20/1000 = 2%

Share: 20/100 = 20%

17

The Significance of Rating Ratings can be used to determine what types of people are watching. The

advertisers are more interested in audience type than audience size;

Ratings can be used to persuade the advertisers to put their money in

their station;

Ratings can be used to see how much viewing occurs in neighboring

communities-if the ratings show substantial viewing, the station might

want to increase coverage of the areas to encourage continued viewing

and better ratings.

18

Other Audience Research

Music Research: Call-outs, Auditorium

Testing

Market Research: Production Research,

Audience Segmentation Research

19

Closing

At the end of this discussion, it is expected that the

students will understand how the feedback from

audience can actually be measured by using certain

method. However, it must also be known that although

such measurement can be very helpful in finding out

the audience’s response toward a television program

the measurement is not that perfect at all.

20