Intro

It is very important to carry out different purposes of research in the media industries if you are going to create a brand, documentary or a product. There are three main types of research that are carried out in the media industries this inclu

• Audience Research

• Market Research
• Production Research 

Market Research

Market research is where something is researched for a selling purpose. e.g. If someone is thinking about creating a new product to sell in supermarkets they will have to research what products are similar and already out there to what they are going to create. It is also an organized effort to gather information about customers. These are the people that are going to buy or watch your products. Millions of pounds are spent on Market Research every year. This is to ensure that when the product has been created it will not lose money because there is already a similar product out there or it has already been created and it is old news to people.

   One way Market research is carried out is by using BARB. BARB is a website that can show you figures or different TV shows in the UK. It can show the public the top 10 viewing figures for different channels but companies that want to know more information than the public do will pay BARB to find out more information. They can pay to find out the top 100 shows on one channel, what time people watch something, what area of the country people are in when they watch it and at what is the most watched TV show in the year over all or on one channel. There are other ways of carrying out research for Market Research such as interviews, surveys and questionnaires. Surveys and questionnaires can be carried out online on websites such as survey monkey, this makes carrying out some of the research cheaper.

Audience Research

Audience research is where something is research to attract a specific audience. e.g. T.V. All TV shows research what type of audiences will be watching there show so they can keep the ratings up. They need to research the age of people and what people that age are interested in, in the modern day. They also have to research the socio economics scale of people; this is how much money people have and which class they come under. The higher the class the more they get paid annually. Lots of money is spent on audience research so they know if people will watch there show. e.g. The X Factor had lots of viewers with its first few series but know is has been on for a while it has started boring people and people no longer want to watch it so people who do audience research for their show will know not to make another show like X Factor because they know they will not watch it if it is similar. 

   One way of carrying out audience research is by doing surveys and questionnaires. This will get people of many different ages to tell them what their interests are, what the watch on TV and maybe even there socio economic status. This is a form of primary research which is the best type of research when wanting to find out the most recent and up to date information. 

Production Research

Production research is when different types of products. It is mainly done through secondary research by searching similar products to what they want to sell. If there is a similar product out there, whoever is creating the new product they will try make is different or better to the one that is already out there. They can also use primary research to get peoples responses on what they would like improved on existing products then whoever is making the new product, they will take into account what they need to do to make their product better so it will sell better than the leading products on the market similar to whatever they are creating.

There are two main ways to carry out the research these are Primary and Secondary Research, they carry out both of these types of research to collect Quantitative and Qualitative Data. The Difference between these are quantitative data is to do with numbers and will compare graphs with different types of data in. and qualitative is to do with descriptions on different things so this will show how different products and such are described. E.g. on a TV show quantitative will tell you the budget, how long it is on for, and quantitative will describe the show and also tell you what type of people watch the show. An advantage for quantitative data is that when you find out your numerical data you can work out and average for it. A Disadvantage to quantitative data would be that you cannot find out any details when you are asking surface base questions. An advantage to qualitative you can find out peoples different facts and opinions also find out why, whereas you cannot do this with numerical data. Finally a disadvantage of this is that it is hard to analyse and it will take longer.

Primary research

In Primary research there are a few different ways you can collect your results these are focus group, survey, questionnaire, observation and interviews. These will tell you the most up to date information but it is the most expensive way of collecting data compared to secondary. It will cost you money to print out surveys and questionnaires but you can also send them out online that may cost you less depending on the stuff you have in the surveys or questionnaires. Another disadvantage of this is people that answer these may not necessarily give you honest answers. These are called 'trolls' who give pointless information in the surveys. But when you have honest answers it is very useful as it will be the most up to date information. 

Primary research is used a lot in the media industry especially within news programs and radio shows. An example of this could be a radio show is getting an interview with a celebrity on their new move; this is them collecting primary research on this most up to date movies. Also with news shows will carry out primary research by going out on the street and getting peoples up to date opinions. Finally one last example of primary research in creative industry would be any company that carries out surveys online. When you sign up for anything online and you have to give you e-mail address you will be automatically but in the date base where every so often they different companies will sent you different e-mails informing you about different things to do with the company but they will also send you surveys to complete. This is an example a primary research in a creative industry.

Secondary research

In secondary research it is collected in different ways as it is not up to date information as you are not getting it first hand off people. These ways are books, internet, journals, videos/documentary, and newspapers. This is a lot cheaper than primary research as it does not cost anything to go on the internet and use Google to find out whatever it is that you are looking for. Or go to a library and find a book with the information you need in it. But this also can be very unreliable as it may not be true information or it even could be old information. That is no longer valid. Especially if you get information off Wikipedia as anyone with a Wikipedia account can access information and can change it them self to anything. 

Secondary research is also used in create industry’s as well especially on news TV programmes when they need to get pictures and information that happened years ago. E.g. when people die they will often go on the internet and get pictures of the person and find out bits on their life. They will find some of this information from the family which is primary research but also you can search the internet if they were famous at all to find out different facts people may not already know. If you were working on a small radio show and you needed a story they would search different stories on the internet and look in the newspapers to find them. This is examples of secondary research in creative industries.

Finally, both primary a secondary research had good advantages and also bad disadvantages this is why when something is researched the company will use both methods of research so that they can get the best results possible for their product or TV show.