Sunday, November 7, 2010

Which audience analysis measurement principles and techniques are most effective and why?

Since radio and television’s popularity skyrocketed, media figures have started to measure their success. They have found a series of ways obtain these rankings such as polling, sweeps, sampling, interviews…etc. While they are all deemed effective in their own way, there are plenty of fallacies with each method, and the only way to truly obtain an effective measure would be to collaborate a series of these methods to come to an ultimate conclusion. Sweeping is when TV rankings are conducted by measuring how many Televisions are tuned into a certain station or show. They are done over the course of certain weeks. This is useful because you get a concrete number, but the problem is that sweeping does not account for the flush factor (people leaving for commercials). It also does not account for the fact that people switch stations to avoid channels or people record shows to edit out the commercials. As a result of these concerns, other methods of measurement must be used to get feedback. Another method is polling or interviews, where the general public is asked to answer questions and share their opinion on a certain subject. The problem with these two methods is that the people that tend to answer these questionnaires tend to have a strong view so the results will be skewed. People who are apathetic to an issue are less likely to answer questions or respond to a poll regarding it. So no measurement of success is truly perfect, but a collaboration of a series of methods can ultimately lead to good feedback on how the general public views aspects of the media.

No comments:

Post a Comment