Factors Influencing Viewers’ Attitudes Towards Reality TV Shows
Importance of Product Promotion to Increase Sales
Background Information
Since the dawn of the capitalism era and even way back before that, there have been an urge to increase sales; such, is due to a wide range of reasons, which may include:
- To increase the firm’s profitability
- To ensure more investment on the firm from shareholders
- To cement the firm’s relevance in the industry through making the product necessary to consumers, etcetera
In order to achieve the various noble desires of both the executive and the stakeholders, firms have over time devised means with which to influence repeat and new sales. Product promotion methods such as use media advertisement (both print and electronic) have gained popularity due to their efficiency and almost consumer specificity targets.
The latest development of visual electronic media is the “Reality Shows”. According to a definition by Collins dictionary, a reality television show “…is a type of television programming which aims to show how ordinary people behave in everyday life or in situations…” Therefore, a reality show should be crafted into ensuring it portrays what majority of viewers go through in their everyday lives if it aims at remaining relevant or else it falls into the category of fiction movie or so and lose the interest of “infatuates”.
However, it is not always true that the view of one viewer on a given ideology will be the same as another’s. Reality television shows being a new craft of visual media has drawn criticism as much as admiration, love as well as indifference and to some extent hate.
In order to determine the relevancy of a commodity, it is always mandatory to take into consideration the view of the consumers on the necessity or the whole structure of the commodity in question. This paper will explore the general view and feeling of the consumers and non-consumers of reality T.V shows. It will then report on the findings from the qualitative and quantitative data after which, it will draw conclusions on the need of a new reality TV show or restructuring of the existing one and offer recommendations to the executive on which path would be most suitable for NBN television Production Company.
The study will explore several factors that influence the view and attitude of consumers towards reality television shows, it will also examine the relationships between the nature of consumers, i.e. their age and gender in regard to some of their attitude
What are consumers’ attitudes towards Reality TV and what factors of Reality TV are important to consumers?
- To explore consumer attitudes towards reality television.
- To understand the characteristics of reality television that is important to consumers.
- To determine if there is a relationship between connecting with participants on reality TV shows and enjoying watching reality TV
- To compare enjoyment of watching reality TV shows between males and
- To identify if there is relationship between age and preferred reality TV show.
- To determine the relationship between enjoyment of reality TV shows and the depiction of real life within a reality TV
- To compare the importance of having attractive participants against depicting real life behaviors.
- To compare the importance of having attractive participants between people who are under 18, 18-25, 26-35, and 36+ years old.
Research data for this study is obtained from primary sources using a questionnaire comprising of 16 questions. The respondents for the study made up a sample of 300. Additionally, qualitative data is available from an online focus group on the various attitudes and views of the public on reality TV shows.
Popularity of Visual Electronic Media and Reality TV
In order to answer the research questions, the study will use descriptive statistics and analysis of variance as well as regression analysis on the factors that influence a person’s intent to watch a reality television show as well as their view on the same. Moreover, the study will explore the adequacy of the questionnaire using the Kaiser Meyer Olkin measure of sampling adequacy. Using the spearman correlation test, it will be ascertained whether there exists correlation between the various variables and whether they are significant.
Data is obtained from coding of responses related to the attitude and a few personal details such as age of the viewers. The data analysis for this project will be conducted using SPSS computer package.
Most of the respondents who were interviewed were female who make up to 70.3% while males make up to 29.7%
Respondents of the age between 18-25 who watched reality shows make up the biggest percentage of 38.3% followed by those of the age bracket between 26-35 with a percentage of 29.3 while those who are under 18 and over 36 make up 21.3% and 11% respectively.
The Survivor Television show is the most preferred at a 42.3 preference percentage while the Big Brother has a preference percentage of 34.3%. The least preferred among the three shows is Jerry Springer with a preference percentage of 23.3%.
Reality TV shows with unfamiliar setups is the most popular among the study respondents with a percentage of 66.0% while those with familiar setups have a preference percentage of 34.0%.
Most of the participants are neutral about them relating to participants on TV shows.
From the bar graph most of the participants are either neutral about their enjoyment of reality TV shows or are positive that they enjoy washing reality TV shows.
Most respondents are of the idea that Reality television shows do not depict real life situations while very few are neural and even fewer agree.
The respondents are of the general view that participants of reality TV shows are often chosen depending on their physical appearance.
In contrast, they are of the opinion that the participants are not chosen based on their personality with about 37% of the respondents disagreeing on whether the participants are chosen owing to personality.
Additionally, most participants are either neutral or agree that the reality television shows are setup with 45% agreeing and 33% strongly agreeing.
In line with the TV shows being set up, most of the participants agree that the participants are really acting, with approximately 47% agreeing and 24% strongly agreeing.
Attitudes Towards Reality TV
However, 58.6% of the respondents are either unsure that the shows are scripted or disagree with them being scripted, 41.4% agree that the shows are scripted.
Approximately 90.7% of the respondents are either neutral or positive about their reason for watching the TV shows as being only when they are bored.
71% of the respondents are of the opinion that they do not connect with the participants of the reality shows.
35.6% of the respondents do not support that it vital to have attractive participants in reality television shows compared to 42.6% who are of the opinion that attractive participants are important to a show.
Most of the participants, i.e. approximately 57.6% support that reality TV shows should depict real life situations
The KMO test statistic value is 0.688, which is greater than the recommended 0.5 for adequacy of the sample; therefore the research sample is adequate for analysis.
Determining if there is a relationship between connecting with participants on reality TV shows and enjoying watching reality TV shows
Null hypothesis: Connecting with participants on TV leads to one enjoying the reality show
Alternative hypothesis: There is no relationship between connecting with participants and on enjoying watching the reality shows
The p-value from the ANOVA table is 0.000 which is less than 0.05 at 95% confidence level; we therefore reject the null hypothesis and conclude that connecting with participants on reality shows does not lead to the watchers enjoying the reality shows.
Comparing enjoyment of watching reality TV shows between males and females.
Null hypothesis: There is a difference between the degree to which males and females enjoy reality shows
Alternative Hypothesis: There is no difference in degree in enjoyment of reality shows between males and females
The Pearson correlation coefficient is 0.515 which is greater than 0.1, we fail to reject the null hypothesis and conclude that there is a difference in the degree of enjoyment of reality TV shows between male and females
Identifying if there is relationship between age and preferred reality TV show.
Null Hypothesis: There is a difference between Age and the preferred reality show, i.e. age influence the choice of TV show
Alternative Hypothesis: There is no difference between age and a preferred reality TV show The spearman’s Rho coefficient is 0.60 which is greater than 0.05 at 95% confidence interval. We therefore fail to reject the null hypothesis that age influences choice of a television show and conclude that choice of a television show is influenced by one’s age.
Equally, respondents who are under the age of 18 prefer the Big brother reality show; those of the age bracket 18-25 prefer the Survivor whereas those of age 26-35 prefer Jerry Springer as well as those who are 35+
Research Data and Methods
Null hypothesis: Depicting real life in reality television shows does lead to enjoyment of the show
Alternative hypothesis: Depicting real life situations has no impact on enjoyment of the Television shows
From the table, the Pearson correlation coefficient is 0.006 which is less than 0.05, it can also be seen that there is a huge difference in the sum of squares where the sum of squares for the dependent is 2.290 while that of the factor is 280.570. We therefore reject the null hypothesis that depicting real life situations in reality shows influences enjoyment and conclude that there is no relationship between the depiction of real life and enjoyment of reality shows.
Moreover, from the bar graph a higher percentage of the respondents agree that they do not necessarily enjoy watching reality TV shows when they depict real life.
Comparing the importance of having attractive participants between people who are under 18, 18-25, 26-35, and 36+ years old
Null Hypothesis: There is no relationship between the importance of having attractive participants on a reality show and the age of viewers
Alternative hypothesis: There is no relationship between the importance of having attractive participants in the reality shows and age of the viewers
Using Kolmogorov-SmirnovZ test the test statistic value is 0.366, while the P-value is 0.999. We fail to reject the null hypothesis and conclude that having attractive participants on TV is important for different age groups. Such is true since from the bar graph respondents who are under 18 years prefer reality television shows whose participants are attractive; those of the age bracket 18-25 are neutral about the appearance of the participants and importance of the reality show whereas those between 26 to 35 as well as those who are 35+ do not attach any importance to appearance and reality shows.
Conclusion
From the data analysis, it is true that different age groups and gender have different preferences and attitudes towards the concept of television reality shows. For instance, more females enjoy than males. According to Reiss (2000) on his theory underlying human motivation, he uses the sensitivity theory which states that “…people pay attention to stimuli that are relevant to the satisfaction of their most basic motives, and they tend to ignore stimuli that are irrelevant to their basic motives.” Therefore, in explaining the difference between males and female on enjoying of reality television, such several reasons as the basic difference of interest can be brought up. Bryant & Zillmann (2002) argue that motivational personality traits are often traced back to viewer preferences. Factors such as viewer preferences changing as age changes or gender are therefore linked to personality traits. Older people for instance do not care whether the participants of a television show are attractive or not. However, general factors such the extent to which the television show depicts reality and the preference to watch it or enjoy it are more general across all age groups. Such is true especially when the human consciousness attributes factors such as realness to television shows. Therefore, in assessing which television show to introduce or to keep, factors such as the set-up, reality depiction, the age of target audience as well as gender should always played into consideration.
Following the data analysis and interpretation, the following recommendations are made to the executive board of NBN for consideration regarding the intent to introduce a new Television Show:
- The executive should consider introduce a television show that is a mixture of depiction between real life situation and a little fiction in order to fit into the fantasy of fiction lovers as well as appeal to those who prefer more “reality” TV shows. Such would ensure a wider audience.
- In order to ensure relevancy of the television show to the target audience without pushing away potentially “disinterested parties”, the executive should at least introduce two television shows, one that aims to capture the interest of younger audience and another that aims to capture the older audience. For instance young audience prefer television shows with more attractive participants compared to the older who don’t really care much
- The executive should ensure more “reality” in the scripts, i.e. the participants should be trained to not look like they are really acting. This will appeal to a wider audience who seek to identify with the actors or even possibly make a connection for them to enjoy watching the show.
Generally, television shows are the new soap operas in town and are therefore popular. However, in order to ensure relevancy and loyalty by consumers, the producing company ought to tailor the shows specifically for the target audience for them to suit both the demand and need of the society.
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