The TV company needed a team of researchers to help them decide on:

• A title for the show
• The type and size of audience for it
• What the show will contain
• Format – length of show, design features (credits, music, sets), deciding whether voting will be by audience or a panel of celebrities/experts

Your mission was to explore:

• The types of research that you can use to answer these questions
• Where you can find out more about shows of this kind, and sources of data that would be of use to meet your mission (the objectives)
• The research (methods) you would use to find the answers that Inventive need to create a successful show
• The sorts of research questions you would ask to meet the objectives
• Why your research team is the best choice for Inventive

Here are some possible solutions that a researcher might use to achieve these aims:

Quantitative (survey) research:

A survey of TV viewers. This could be a telephone survey, a postal survey or an online survey. You might want to include a sample of people from across the whole country, or a smaller sample of people from a discrete geographical areas or regions, which can be more cost-effective.

It would be advisable to include men and women of different ages, from different ethnic groups and from different social backgrounds in the survey. That way you can find out which groups are most likely to watch a TV show of this kind.

Your questionnaire could ask a range of questions to try to provide you with some answers to the questions above. Below are a few examples of questions you could ask:

 - Would you watch a TV show about technology and inventions?

Answers: Yes; No; It depends on the content

- What kinds of things would you include in a show about invention?

Example list of answers: Teams of contestants competing to make the best   invention; ‘expert’ presenters demonstrating new technologies; video clips showing new technologies/inventions in action; etc

- How long do you think the show should last per episode?

Example list of answers: up to 30 minutes; up to 45 minutes; up to 1 hour; longer than 1 hour

- What kind of viewer involvement would you like to see included in the TV show?

Example list of answers: Viewer telephone voting; viewer online voting; viewer live calling to the studio; etc

In summary, using quantitative research you could ascertain: the demographics of a potential audience i.e. who are the people that are most likely to watch the programme; viewers’ opinions on the length of the show; design features; audience interaction; features and content etc. However, quantitative research leaves no room for debate or discussion about the best format for the show. You can combine surveys with qualitative research to overcome this (see below).

Qualitative research:

Focus groups or in-depth interviews (one-to-one or in pairs) with potential viewers would enable you to understand why potential viewers think as they do. Qualitative research would enable you to explore and discuss issues such as:

-What would be a good title for this TV programme and why?

-What could be included in the format of the show and why would it appeal to viewers?

-What would make you watch a programme like this?

-What characteristics would appeal to you in a presenter and why?

You could also use focus groups to ‘test out’ a pilot version of the show before it is aired, to ensure that the programme is received well by viewers.

In qualitative research you are looking for themes and patterns emerging from the discussions. It is not about producing numbers or statistics (that can be obtained by survey research).

Desk research:

In addition to the primary research methods above, you also need to explore the kind of competition that exists out there. If there are too many TV shows of this kind, yours may not be well received! Using the Internet as a primary approach, you can ascertain whether there are any similar programmes in existence, what their markets are, what their main features and content are, then assess whether or not you will be duplicating any elements of these programmes.

You could also contact television production companies to ascertain whether they have any plans to produce similar programmes in the near future.