Media diary - week 3

Audience Classification – Doctor Who

For this week’s media diary, I have decided to write about (my favourite TV show ever!!!) the popular UK series that has been aired for many years (1963), Doctor Who.  There have also been shows related to this one such as The Sarah Jane Adventures and Torchwood. Doctor Who is a British science fiction programme which depicts the adventures of the Doctor who is a Time Lord who time travels and explores the universe in his extremely well known iconic TARDIS. Every 3 or so series’ there is a new actor who takes the role of the Doctor, alongside new companions who join him in his world of mystery and drama. This programme is mainly aimed at teenagers and young people as the storylines are easy to follow, and the characters are appealing to people of this age group.

When it comes to the income and status model, I think that Doctor Who would in some way appeal to someone in each of the categories, due to the fact that it has been aired across many generations of people and on such a popular TV station, BBC. This TV show is viewed by children as it is aired on a family channel, at a child friendly time, and the evil characters featured in the programme aren't too scary. However, I think that it would mainly appeal to group C2, D and E, as this group of people will have a lot of time to watch shows like this. For example, students are a perfect example of this, as the age group of these people are those who still attend school and also, this programme is on weekly, and they will be able to watch it as it would be convenient for them. I believe that when writing this TV programme, the writers would have kept in mind the types of audiences, as most of the storylines clearly appeal to a certain type of people. This programme reaches out and appeals to both genders despite the fact that all of the Doctors are males, there are aspects in the show such as female companions to appeal to the women viewers. The show is British, however there are people of different nationalities frequently featured on the show, and it is not specifically set in one area of Britain, so there is a wide variety of an accent within all characters featured on the show.

For Young and Rubicam’s 4 C’s model, I would say that this targets the explorer, as their core need in life is for discovery and they seek out difference and something new. Doctor who would fit them perfectly as each episode is something new and different, as each week there is a brand new episode with a whole new storyline and adventure for them to watch and enjoy. Mainstreamers would also be a target audience for this programme because they respond to big established brand and names, and the BBC is a well-known, reliable family channel. They like familiarity, which suits Doctor Who as t is aired weekly with very little interruption and the time change is usually only by an hour and no later.

The lifestyle categories which Doctor Who would fit into would be the traditionalists, as these are a group of people who want things to stay the same, and although there is a brand new episode every week, the storylines are pretty similar and, the fact that it is on every week and the programme has been on television since 1963, would be suited to them as they don’t like change.  Contrasting to this, Doctor Who could appeal to the drop outs, as they don’t want to be committed. Although there is a consistent storyline throughout each series, it is very loose and easy to pick up at any point, meaning that it is not necessary o watch each and every episode to understand what is going on. 

When it comes to audience profiling, as media students we are aware that media producers see the audience as that of a mass and not just as individual people. The target audience for this programme would be mainly boys, however there are aspects that appeal to females too. This is also a programme enjoyed by families, as seen on the channel 4 show ‘Gogglebox’ I too enjoy watching the weekly episodes of Doctor Who with my parents, even if they don’t always know what’s going on and they ask the most annoyingly obvious questions throughout the episode. I would say that even though the series is sci-fi based, it does not just appeal to sci-fi fans. I myself would not say that I am a huge science fiction lover; however I have been a massive fan of Doctor Who since the first series in the 21^st century with Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor. There have been twelve different actors who have headlined the series as the Doctor, but only 4 of those are featured in the 21^st century which are the most popular, each actor portrays the Doctor in a different manner, they are essentially playing the same character and form part of the same storyline.