Target Audience Profile

Our soap opera is aimed predominantly at a mainstream audience as devised by the Young and Rubicam's Four Consumers. We chose this because this makes up 40% of the population who feel they can relate to this style of program. We're aiming this at groups C1 - E because this is made up of students, working class, lower middle class and the unemployed, who are more likely to be at home when shows are aired. Also, they tend to be home at the same time every day, meaning they can keep up with the soap and keep viewings up.

The reason we havent aimed at groups A and B is because the story lines in our soap will take more of an influence from lower class backgrounds as opposed to higher. Also, we are taking influence from soaps Hollyoaks and Eastenders, both of whom aim at our target groups. Furthermore, the audience categories Home Soldiers, Priority Parents, Struggling Singles and Settled Elders as defined by LifeMatrix are the kind of social groups we are aiming at. For example, our main family, The Hall's, will appeal to the Home Soldiers because of their family values, such as loyalty and hard work. An established character who fits into this category is Peggy Mitchell from Eastenders.

The types of storylines we are exploring - homosexuality, family values, teenage pregnancy and underage drinking - feature regularly in both Hollyoaks and Eastenders. Hollyoaks is aimed predominantly at a younger audience, namely aged 15-30, whereas Eastenders appeals to a wider audience because of the diversity and range of characters.

Many soaps follow the Hyperdermic Needle theory as proposed by meaning that audiences are passive and have no active participation in the program. Most soaps follow this theory, although often they deal with current issues which audiences are interested in, which does involve a certain amount of thinking on the audiences part, linking to the theory of Uses and Gratifications ( Denis McQuail, 1987). We are also going to consider the use of the Male Gaze Theory as proposed by Laura Mulvey, which makes the assumption that the audience is male and so aims predominantly at them.