Critical Approaches - Weekend Prime Time

Critical Approaches

Weekend Prime Time

Audiences can be measured in many different ways by programme commissioners. This may be done by qualitative or quantitative methods. Qualitative research for TV figures, can be done by holding things such as focus groups where they may have a selection of a specific audience and ask them a few questions, or a questionnaire where they may hand out a sheet of different questions to many different people or audience profiling. Audiences are often broken into different categories such as socio-economic status, age or gender. Al stands for Audience appreciation index. It grades audiences out of 100 showing the public appreciation for a programme on the TV or Radio in the UK. Before the year 2002, BARB often calculated this however, it is now part on an online Television Appreciation survey on behalf of the BBC Audience Research Unit. Since June 2011, BBC TV Programmes have received Al ratings of 82. An average Al for a drama programme via BBC One and ITV1 is 84. Any Al measures of 90 and above are considered exceptional, leaving 85 to be excellent. However, any Al that measures 60 or below is poor leaving anything below 55 as very poor.

BARB stands for Broadcasters Audience Research Board which collects audience measurements and ratings from TV in the UK. BARB also measures Quantitative audience research. It is estimated that around 5100 homes all have a box in which their TV monitors all the programmes that are being watched in the household.

Over the years, there has been a constant figure battle between ITV1 and BBC1 on Saturday and Sunday night prime time. Here is the most popular two shows that are battling for views on the weekend by both channels.

Saturday & Sunday figures		Overnight figures	Official figures
ITV 1	Britain’s Got Talent	9.23 million	9.585 million
BBC1	The voice	6.67 million	7.817 million

  

For TV companies’, having a large viewing figure is ideal and can be very beneficial. It is also important for TV advertising to have larger viewing figures as without them, attaining or attracting advertisers would not be enough to generate enough revenue. ITV has a lot to live up to by their audiences. It is vital that they attract a massive viewing figure as a broader audience, means a high paying advertiser. However, for the BBC it is important they are able to bring in a wider audience as they need to prove to the government that they are able to successfully do this so that they can petition for a higher TV license fee. Prime Time is usually between 6pm and 10.30pm. This is the time where shows seem to be most popular and are screened with the highest audience count. Times may also vary with what specific audience. For example, from the times 6-7pm this may be a more popular time for families to watch or older couples. However, times from 8pm onwards, would more likely be watched by the younger generation aged 16 plus. Channels often use Prime Time to guide them as to what programmes should be airing and at what time. On Saturday nights, the programmes that tend to air are ‘Britain’s got Talent’ and ‘The Voice’ this is because it is called light entertainment meaning, if you are occupied with something else during the airing time of these shows, you are able to easily come back and catch up with the episode you have missed. However on Sundays, they tend to air more script dramas as Sunday nights are more relaxed and audiences tend to be at home. They use programmes that need your attention to watch, rather than a light entertainment which can be watched quite easily.

The graphs below show the battle rating between The Voice and Britain’s got Talent defined by difference of age and gender demographic. 

As we can see through the charts, both program's even with both sexes are exactly the same. However, The Voice and Britain's got Talent is most popular with the female audience.   

Both program's are watched by different audiences. This includes different age ranges. Both program's have different results. For example, for both programs we can see that 16-34 year olds are the most popular audience. Britain's got talent on the other hand, is watched by 4-15 year olds whilst The Voice's most unpopular audience is 55-64 year olds. Britain's got talent is therefore, more popular.