Documentaries : Target Audience

It is important to understand the target audience for the documentary which you are producing; who would be intrested in it, who would be effected by it. These are cut down into different sections for example the age category or gender. There are many different reasons why it is important to understand your target audience, here are some of the factors to think about when thinking about your target audience.

What time of the day it is?

It is important to consider what time of the day you will be showing your documentary, for example for the younger generations you would expect it to be earlier in the day, while the older target audience you would expect it to be later in the evening. This may because the documentary includes swearing or inappropriate behavior which is not suitable for the younger ages. There are rules about the times which a documentary can be shown, for example the watershed which means that the time shown could mean that the documentary is unsuitable for children.

What is the age group?

It is also important to consider the age group for whom you want to watch your documentary. Whether it is aimed for the older generations or the younger ones.  This way you will able to add the forms and conventions to your documentary which will suit your audience best. Even though documentaries tend to be watched for the older generations it it important to consider whether younger people may be interested in the topic which you are focusing on. Here is an example of two documentaries which one for the younger generation and one for the older.

Younger:                                                                                                                  Older:

Here are the three main reasons of why it is important to know who may be intrested in your target audience:

Editorial:

When you know who your target audience it is easier as you will know how to make basic decisions during the production process. Knowing what to include, what the different codes and conventions are which you should be focusing on.  

Marketing and Distribution:

Distribution is important as it is about getting your production to the right target audience. It is important that a company aims its documentary at a certain group of people, this therefor it makes it easier to advertise, also makes it cheaper as you don't waste your time distributing to the wrong people. Without knowing your target audience it makes it difficult to market and distribute your product in order to gain full potential of your documentary. 

Funding:

It is always important to understand how much money you have in order to attract your target audience.  You will need to think about who will be willing to purchase your documentary, as this will lead to future documentaries in the future. By making it attractable to your target audience will allow for more purchases to be made as viewers may be more intrested.  

By knowing your target audience makes it much easier to produce your product and distribute it to the right people.



Target audience for our documentary:

As our documentary involves large amounts of politics, the target audience for it if the older generations. We chose this because we think that they will be more likely to watch it and be highly intrested. As it is a current topic, we believe that we are capable of producing a documentary which will have a mass audience as it is something which will begin to effect many peoples lives in the future.

Our documentary will be shown at 9pm on BBC1, we have chose this because as our documentary is highly political we thought that this would be the most suitable more than any other television channel. As we have chosen 9pm, this is because it is after the watershed times, as it may contain language which is not suitable for the younger generations. We think that this is the time and the channel where our documentary will gain the most viewers.


If you would like to watch our final documentary please click here.