Different media products looking at Demographic & Psychographic audiences.

Firstly, however what are demographics and psycho-graphics.

Demographic’s Relate to the way people can be grouped together and described based on different factors such as age, gender and social class. This grouping of people is known as ABC1 and C2DE, this helps the tv companies categorise their shows and it allows them to be able to target specific groups, for example top gear is mainly aimed towards D (the working class), in the C2DE. Whereas programmes like Netflix’s “The Crown” are aimed towards the A class (upper middle class), in the ABC1 category.

Demographics are useful because this can help to determine the future of films/ tv programmes and what the audience would like to see more / less of, this is helpful data. By understanding what the viewers are looking for the tv companies can determine if consumers may want a new programme and if so who would they target this programme at for advertising and viewing, this helps to avoid making costly mistakes, like advertising this programme to the wrong audience and this would also help to push the filming company forward and it also helps them get more funding for other new shows / existing shows.

Using demographics to define or section an audience doesn't always work though, as many people do not fit in the traditional categories, as their lifestyle habits may be different.

Psycho-graphics is the study of personality's, values, attitudes, interests and life styles and is used alongside demographics.

Psycho-graphics are classifying people based on general demographic data, attitudes, interests and life styles also many more. Psychographics is research on understanding cognitive attributes, such as customer emotions, values, and attitudes, among other psychological factors, this can help in the media industry by getting to know the target audience and when they are most likely to watch a chosen programme, who would want to watch it, what sort of clothing should actors wear in the show and what accents actors should use etc….

Programme A: I’m a celebrity get me out of here (ITV)

An estimated 11 million people viewed in the UK on the first episode of season 18, 2018

This show is so successful as it brings together many demographically different classes both on the show and the viewers watching, they do this by bringing in celebrities that spectate in all the different ranges of ABC1 targeted programmes and C2DE targeted programmes. It’s one of the most successful tv programmes in the world because of this use of demographics. However, the Psycho-graphics are also just as important as ITV has made sure to put into the show at least 1 celeb that can relate to each category of Psycho-graphics like; The Reformer (Nick Knowles), The Aspirer (Malique Thompson-Dwyer), the explorer (Rita Simons) etc…. ITV has also made sure there is every different age group in the show, different ethnicities and different religions.

Programme B: The Grand Tour (prime video)

Ex top gear presenters Richard Hammond, James May and Jeremy Clarkson left the top gear studios over 3 years ago and have since been creating their own show with Amazon prime video ever since. They have managed to real in over 1,000,000 new amazon prime subscribers for the first series of the show back in 2016 and have managed to get consistent streams of over 2,000,000 on each episode since. The show really didn’t need any marketing as the trio of presenters were enough to bring in new watchers, however amazon still used demographics and Psycho-graphics to advertise and create the show. The demographics for the show are men in their 50’s / teenagers who love the trio’s comedy, they target the C1 / C2 market mainly but also bring in a lot of viewers from the B category, this is because there is humour in the programme though it is balanced with facts about fast loud cars. The show has this wide range as many men are interested in cars, for instance male teen agers, because this Is when they are allowed to get a car and love to see the wonders of the open road and they also like the comedy, whereas men in their 50’s may watch the show for the racing, to see new cars and listen to the pure beauty of a v8 / v10 engine and they have also grew up watching top gear.

For Psycho-graphics, I would say the grand tour brings in Mainly English nationals who grew up watching the old top gear, who are into their cars, own cars or really would like one, non-techy people and people who love old British comedy. The mix of this and the demographics makes for quite a brilliant show that I watch myself for both the old comedy and cars!