Target Audience- Research
It has been said that humans are not capable of acquiring the skill of reading until they are beyond the age of four or five because their minds have not matured to a point where such learning is possible. This might be a reason for which most of the children between the ages of 2 to 6 yrs prefer to watch and listen to easy to understand cartoons such as fairies, princesses and heroes. This sort of cartoons/series concentrates more on the movement on the image instead of the language. One good example for this sort of cartoons/series would be ‘In the Night Garden’, where the characters don’t necessarily talk but there is a voice over which probably attracts the children more because it is told in a story-like way.
My product will be probably targeted at an audience of small children between ranges of age like 2-4 yrs and 4 to 6 yrs olds, more likely to be girls. I will be using fairies as my character and I will name them after the colour of their dresses (but this will be evident only in the promotion of the series – magazine covers etc), pictures of nature and on the background there will be a poem by William Shakespeare read by me.
Common to both groups of children, girls and boys are the series/cartoons Scooby-Doo and Tom&Jerry. Also, the children are interested in the mystery of the cartoons which is very similar to what my opening sequence is going to be like.
Overall, from my interviews as well as the questionnaires most of the children will rather watch TV in the morning and less in the afternoon. 8 children out of 10 watch TV always in the morning and only 2 sometimes. This is a very high percentage of children who watch TV in the morning compared to only 6 children out of ten watching TV after school and only 2 sometimes and 2 children never. The fact that Cbeebies for example present the same programme in the afternoon as the one in the morning parents have said in the interviews that this makes the children get bored, some of them preferring to watch DVDs or play by themselves.
There are also some statistics which affirm that the firm favourite channels for children are Nicheoldon, Cartoon Network and the Disney Channel but as I have observed from my research there are very small chances that actually children like these ones most. The outcome from the questionnaires as well as the interviews was that most of the children, without taking into consideration their sex choose as their favourite programme to be Charlie and Lola and also the CBBC documentaries. This shows that CBBC is one of children’s favourites.
What children choose to watch every day or usually as their favourite depends also upon their sex, either boy or girl. My research has shown that the majority of the boys watch series such as ‘Fireman Sam’ ‘Toy Story’ or ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’. It might also be a chance whereas small children will watch more cartoons or less, if there are older or younger brothers and sisters and also if there is a childminder for children with mental or physical disabilities. We can say that these children are an exception because they don’t develop as normal as others and therefore they might be watching less TV in the morning and less TV in the afternoon than a normal child which impacts directly on my overall research results. On the other hand, girls would rather go for princesses and fairies but in the same time they could also share boys’ series and cartoons as for example, Scooby Doo and Bob the Builder.
‘Hollenbeck & Slaby, 1979’ – ‘children begin paying attention to the TV Screen as early as 6 months of age, by age 3, many children have developed regular patterns of viewing of about an hour or two per day (Huston et al…,1983)’. This has been proven by my interviews whereas the majority of the parents have recognised that their children watch approximately an hour of cartoons/series before they go to school and in average and hour to an hour and a half after school. Another source also confirms my results which is ‘Childewise 08/09; Barb 2008’ who says that children watch 2.7 hours per day in general. The majority of the children watch more TV in the morning, for example the average time in the morning that the children watch cartoons is between 7.30 and 9.30 which decreases dramatically in the afternoon, because of the repetition of the programmes. However, the children who have favourite series such as Peppa Pig, which has been predominant in the questionnaires as being preferred by both girls and boys, will chose also to see DVDS or Videos with either the same series or other series such as Ben 10 for boys or Princesses & Fairy Tales for girls. Even though Peppa Pig is on top of all other series, there is a variation of programmes/series that children tend to watch as well. For example, Charlie and Lola, Bob the Builder, Dora the Explorer, Postman Pat and Fireman Sam are between children’s favourite but not watched as intensely as the Cbeebies programmes in the morning. Therefore, I would definitely put my cartoons on in the morning because the ratings would be much higher than in the afternoon.
From my research I found out that CBBC is the most watched channel (amongst 6-12 yr old children). However, through my questionnaires I have noticed that a range of 2-5 yr olds also prefer the CBeebies.
At the question ‘would they rather watch princesses, fairies or heroes’ the majority of the parents have answered princesses but this can be justified by the fact that 7 out of ten parents have daughters and only 4 have sons (one parent has answered for both children). Unfortunately, when choosing between these three categories it has been only one answer for fairies which could be interpreted as a prediction that my product will not be so well received by the public, however at the question ‘which is the favourite cartoon/series’ one parent has answered ‘Tinkerbelle DVD series’ (one for each season), which is good because my product will be promoted as well and launched on DVD and advertised in children’s magazines. The Disney programmes have the same percentage as the ‘Thinkerbelle series’, equally followed by series such as ‘Tom&Jerry’ , ‘Thomas the tank engine’ and ‘Ben 10’.
Questionnaire
· Does your child watch TV in the morning?
Yes, always /No, never/Only sometimes
· If you answered yes: About what time?
..................................................
· What do they prefer to watch?
......................................................
· Do they have a favourite children’s programme or series?
Yes/No
· If chosen yes: Which one?
..........................................................
· Would they prefer to watch fairies, princesses or heroes?
........................................................
· Which one would they rather watch from these three most of the times?
.........................................................
· Do they watch TV programmes/series after school?
.........................................................
· If answered yes: which one?
.........................................................
· Does the child have a favourite cartoon that he/she prefers to watch on video/DVD player?
Yes / No
If yes which one? ........................
· What age is your child?
...........
· What sex is your child?
M / F
Results of 11 questionnaires:
1st question:
Yes, always 8
No, never 0
Only sometimes 3
2nd question
between 7-8 6
between 8-9 2
between 9-10 2
left blank 1
3rd question
Kids Channel 1
Peppa Pig 3
Postman Pat 1
Noddy 1
Cbeebies Documentarries 3
Charlie and Lola 1
Fireman Sam/Tiny Pop 1
4th question
Yes 11
No 0
5th question 2
Peppa Pig 1
Postman Pat 1
Little Princess 1
Ben 10 1
Bottle Top Bill 1
Chuggington/Charlie and Lola 1
The Twinnies 1
Fireman Sam 1
Dora the Explora 1
Octonauts 1
6th question
Fairies 1
Princesses 4
Heroes 5
None 1
7th question
Fairies 2
Princesses 3
Heroes 6
None 0
8th question
Yes 5
No 3
Sometimes 3
9th question
Cbbc/Cbeebies 2
Tom and Jerry 1
Peppa Pig 1
Fifi and the Flower Tots 1
Tiny Pop 1
I can cook/Nina and the Neurons 2
10th question
Yes 8
No 3
which one
Postman Pat 1
Ben 10 1
Meg and Mog 1
Thomas the Tank Engine 1
Tom and Jerry 1
New Tinkerbell Series 2
Disney film 1
11th question
one year old
2 yrs old
3 yrs old 3
4 yrs old 3
5 yrs old 4
6 yrs old 1
12th question
F 8
M 3
Results of 11 questionnaires:
1st question:
Yes, always 8
No, never 0
Only sometimes 3
2nd question
between 7-8 6
between 8-9 2
between 9-10 2
left blank 1
3rd question
Kids Channel 1
Peppa Pig 3
Postman Pat 1
Noddy 1
Cbeebies Documentarries 3
Charlie and Lola 1
Fireman Sam/Tiny Pop 1
4th question
Yes 11
No 0
5th question 2
Peppa Pig 1
Postman Pat 1
Little Princess 1
Ben 10 1
Bottle Top Bill 1
Chuggington/Charlie and Lola 1
The Twinnies 1
Fireman Sam 1
Dora the Explora 1
Octonauts 1
6th question
Fairies 1
Princesses 4
Heroes 5
None 1
7th question
Fairies 2
Princesses 3
Heroes 6
None 0
8th question
Yes 5
No 3
Sometimes 3
9th question
Cbbc/Cbeebies 2
Tom and Jerry 1
Peppa Pig 1
Fifi and the Flower Tots 1
Tiny Pop 1
I can cook/Nina and the Neurons 2
10th question
Yes 8
No 3
which one
Postman Pat 1
Ben 10 1
Meg and Mog 1
Thomas the Tank Engine 1
Tom and Jerry 1
New Tinkerbell Series 2
Disney film 1
11th question
one year old
2 yrs old
3 yrs old 3
4 yrs old 3
5 yrs old 4
6 yrs old 1
12th question
F 8
M 3
