TV CHOICETV Listings Magazine Research and Analysis

HISTORY AND PUBLICATIONTV Choice is a British magazine published by H. Bauer Publishing. The magazine was launched in 1999 and features the UK’s most popular (most watched) TV shows, soaps and some films. They also include some puzzles, crosswords and prize competitions.

TV Choice became the UK’s best selling magazine of all categories in February 2008 and still holds this title today. The magazine was first published at a price of 42p but due to the arrival of competitors in the market, it was reduced to just 20p in March 2013 as ‘TV Pick’ set out to challenge the magazine. Following this period, the magazines price steadily continued to increase and is now priced at 50p from 2015.

This shows TV Choice as a comparison with all the UK’s current tv listing magazines, in terms of number of pages of listings, total pages, per day listings, planner view, number of channels included, number of radio channels included, price and number of film pages.

TARGET AUDIENCEThe target audience for TV Choice would have definitely been more narrowed down recently due to the rise of technology and the internet. TV listings are all available online and so the younger generation will much prefer to use mobile devices or computers to check this. Due to this, TV Choice’s target audience is the older generation of 65-70 year olds as they prefer to read a handheld magazine because the majority of this group of people feel uncomfortable or very unfamiliar when using technology. This group of people are also the majority viewers of tv soaps as they are out of work and need something to do during the day and night.

This would be the perfect example of what the target audience for TV Choice would be.

LISTINGSThis is an example of what a standard films listing will look like in TV Choice. The columns consist of all the films shown throughout the week on each day of the week. Each film which is listed has been given a brief description of what the film is about. Due to the target audience of TV Choice, there is a lot more text than there is pictures, which means that the adults who read this will know what the film is about and can decide whether; it is suitable for children, it interests them, etc. The pictures that are used all feature either well-known actors or movies which can attract the audience as they can see there ‘big-screen favorites’ in the magazine.

ANALYSISThe double page spread is split up into columns, each column represents a day of the week. It’s also colour coded to ensure the audience are quickly able to differentiate the days and quickly find the day they are looking for. The title of each show listed is in bold and features a description beneath. By using bold text allows for the audience to quickly scan the text for a specific show they may be looking for. Also at the bottom of each description is some extra information about the show such as its rating and age certificate which allows parents to determine whether it is suitable for their children.

The listings which have the highest ratings or feature a more recognised actor will have an image still of the show/film in addition to the description which is used to attract the audience because they will see their favorite actor/actress and will want to watch what they are in.

EVALUATIONWe believe as a group it would be very beneficial to use TV Choice as the magazine to list our documentary due to the fact that TV Choice is the best selling magazine in the UK and so therefore our documentary listing will be seen by a wider audience and in turn a larger amount of people. The only problem with this is the type of people that will see it. Our documentary target audience is students aged between 16-25 whereas the target audience for TV Choice magazine is elderly students aged between 65-70. This means that our documentary will not be seen by our preferred target audience.