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Educational Programmes on Television |
Background
Our client produces an enormous range and number of educational programmes, some of which are extremely specialist and learned, some of which are also lighthearted and entertainment-led.
Objectives
The main objective was to ascertain an authoritative audience’s view of these programmes, particularly in relation to their educational effectiveness.
Approach
We conducted a series of focus group discussions and telephone depth interviews, in London, Leeds and Birmingham. Respondents were aged between 20 and 60 years and the majority had children living at home. Respondents watched video tapes of a selection of programmes and filled in a self completion questionaire after seeing each programme.
Outcome
The educational programmes were deemed to have high production values and were put on a par with ‘mainstream’ documentaries. In general, respondents did not expect, nor want to be educated (in a pedantic sense) by these programmes, but had felt both entertained and informed. Further, they believed that the programmes had provided insights and spurred them on to further thought. Most believed that viewing the programmes had been worthwhile, but contradictorily, would still hesitate to choose to watch programmes labelled as ‘educational’ or ‘worthwhile’. The responses were fed back to the channel to be used in preparation for their annual review and strategy planning
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Case Studies