| Abstract: | This note summarises the main points that have arisen from the first phase of the Active Audience project, which the Centre for Television Research has undertaken with sponsorship from the BBC. This research has been designed to look at the nature of the television audience not in the usual way of counting heads and noting down who watches what, but in terms of why people watch television and how they respond to what they are being offered. Essentially this project is exploratory and represents an effort to analyse and understand the experience of the audience with television from two points of view. Firstly, by studying the motivation of the audience to watch television, as shown from the expectations different people attach to their viewing; and secondly, by concentrating more specifically on the perception and interpretation of the broadcast material which may determine programme preferences and strengthen or weaken the motivation of the audience to watch television. These two ways of looking at television, that is from a ‘general motivation’ and a ‘perception and meaning’ angle, have been explored during the initial phase of the research, using the ‘family case‐study’ method. This involved the in‐depth study of a small number of individuals in their family context, by means of intensive repeated interviewing about their TV viewing and their life‐style more generally. The conducted case‐studies provided many insights of the role and significance of television within different styles of life and pointed to a number of practical implications for broadcasters, concerning both programme‐making and programme‐planning. |
