We helped a leading media house gain insights into the TV viewing habits of the target audience during and after the ’lockdown’ due to the pandemic and provided them recommendations on how to design popular shows
The problem:
- A leading media house wished to understand the TV viewing habits of the GEC viewers during the lockdown phase and know the opinions of people regarding the uptake and acceptability of different shows. They also liked to gauge the opinions of viewers in Kolkata and Rest-of-Bengal about the shows introduced by other channels. The exercise was also repeated after the lockdown – to understand the subsequent lifestyle changes of the people and how they are getting used to with the ‘new-normal’ situation
Key actions and solution
- Extensive telephone calls were made to students, working women and housewives. Care was taken to ensure that women from different socio-economic backgrounds were contacted so that a variation is maintained.
- A structured close-ended questionnaire with options of few open-ended questions was prepared and client inputs were taken into account while finalizing this research instrument.
- Some of the key areas covered in the questionnaire were:
- Mood during the ‘lockdown’
- Key positive aspects appreciated and challenges experiencing during the lockdown
- Key activities during the day – focus on entertainment-related areas
- Details of TV viewing, type of connection, types of TV shows viewed, family members influencing choice of programmes, control of remote, etc.
- Opinion on current TV shows (older programmes) being telecast and preferred TV shows & channel preference
- Changes in lifestyle and TV viewing habits as well as preferred channels during Unlock 1.0
- The results were summarized in a PowerPoint slide deck and a number of recommendations were provided to the media house about the trends in lifestyle and behaviour of the public during lockdown and subsequent times
The result
- We provided the client with an in-depth understanding of the the TV viewing habits of the public in the days of the lockdown and gave them an overview of the demographic and psychological profile of the viewers in Kolkata and Rest-of-West Bengal. The psychological profile included their mindset during the times of lockdown, their various activities, positive aspects as they felt, challenges they faced during lockdown. We also included details of the TV-viewing habits of the public that covered the daily duration of TV viewing, key family members who acted as influencers in watching various shows, type of shows mainly watched, opinion on current shows being telecast and what type of shows they mainly want.
- Based on our feedback – the media house redesigned their shows and introduced such programmes to match the preference of viewers. These shows turned out to be highly popular among the public in West Bengal and succeeded in increasing the viewership to a significant extent