WHO WOULD BE THE AUDIENCE FOR YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT?

Question Four
From lots of discussion, 'S.S.S.N' have decided that our film titled 'The Visitor' will be aimed at a target audience of 15-24 year olds.
Firstly, from deciding that the BBFC rating would be that of a fifteen, we then had to do research consideration into how often our film would be viewed and why the certificate of a fifteen was appropriate.
From the research conducted, we found many interesting facts that greatly backed up why we chose the genre of a thriller and why a rating of fifteen would benefit our film company.
According to the UK Film Council, the most common BBFC rating issued in 2009 was a 15. Immediately, this helped our decision into who our prioritised target audience would be. However, a further fact issued the claim that the largest profit came from 12A films in the same year. Even though this was the case, due to previous research done into BBFC ratings and the reasons behind the certificate given, there was no way that the content of our film could be based at an audience of 12 and possibly younger. In addition to this, when choosing between the certificate of a 15 and an 18 the following facts concluded our decision: 'Only 49 films rated at 18 were released in 2009 compared to 223 films with a BBFC rating of 15' and 'Only 2 of the certificate 18 films broke the 10 million profit margin.'
Clearly, taking into consideration both the genre of our film and who it should be aimed at, 'The Visitor' was given a rating of 15.

Our next step was choosing the dedicated target audience age range. Knowing that the film was going to be given a certificate of 15, it was hard deciding how many years up the age gap should prioritise to. Due to this uncertainty, it was clear that research had to be done in order to assure that we were not missing out on vital viewers. From research into audiences in 2009, the same company, UK Film Council, stated that 7-34 year olds are the most common age group to go to the cinema. In relation to the UK population, this makes up 40% which converts to 60% of the cinema audiences. Understandingly, from this point, we had to relate this fact to our BBFC rating concluding with the statement that '40% of 15-24 year olds go to the cinema at least once a month.'

Overall
From the research conducted into film viewers, S.S.S.N decided to aim our target audience at 15-24 year olds. However, as previously spoken about 40% of this age group going to the cinema at least once a month, we had to consider the other members of the population in our audience range who were not paying to view our film. Interestingly, we found that one in three 15-24 year olds regularly or occasionally download or watch a film online. This allows us to create a positive assumption that a high percentage of our target audience will find our film appealing to watch.