Audience Preferences Research Articles

Uncovering audience preferences for concert features from single-ticket sales with a factor-analytic random-coefficients model

To better plan their programs, producers of performing arts events require forecasting models that relate ticket sales to the multiple features of a program. The framework we develop, test and implement uncovers audience preferences for the features of an event program from single-ticket sales while accounting for interactions among program features and for preference heterogeneity across markets. We develop a factor-analytic random-coefficients model that overcomes four major methodological challenges. First, the historical data available from each market is limited, preventing the estimation of models at the market level and requiring some form of shrinkage estimator that also takes into account the diversity in preferences across markets as well as the fact that preferences for the many (26 in our application) program features are correlated across markets, requiring the estimation of a large covariance matrix for these preferences across markets. Our proposed factor-analytic regression formulation parsimoniously captures the principal components of the correlated preferences and provides shrinkage estimates at the individual market level. The second challenge we face is the fact that orchestras differ on how they sell season subscriptions, leading to substantial unobserved effects on ticket sales across orchestras; an added benefit of our random-coefficients approach is that it incorporates a random effect that captures any shift in the dependent variable caused by unobservable factors across all events in each individual market, such as the unobservable effect of season subscriptions on single-ticket sales.The third methodological challenge is that program features are likely to interact requiring the estimation of a large set of pair-wise interactions. We solve this problem by mapping the interactions on a reduced space, arriving at a more parsimonious model formulation. The fourth methodological challenge relates to implementation of the model results beyond the relatively small sample of markets for which historical data were available. To overcome this limitation, we demonstrate how our model can be applied to markets not included in our sample, first using only managerial insight regarding the similarity between the focal market and the ones in our sample and by updating this subjective prior as ticket sales data become available.

Uncovering Audience Preferences for Concert Features from Single-Ticket Sales with a Factor-Analytic Random-Coefficients Model

To better plan their programs, producers of performing arts events need forecasting models that relate ticket sales to the multiple features of a program. The framework we develop, test and implement uncovers audience preferences for the features of an event program from single-ticket sales, while accounting for interactions among program features and for preference heterogeneity across markets. We develop a factor-analytic random-coefficients model that overcomes four major methodological challenges. First, the historical data available from each market is limited, preventing the estimation of models at the market level, and requiring some form of shrinkage estimator that also takes into account the diversity in preferences across markets, as well as the fact that preferences for the many (26 in our application) program features are correlated across markets, requiring the estimation of a large covariance matrix for these preferences across markets. Our proposed factor-analytic regression formulation parsimoniously captures the principal components of the correlated preferences and provides shrinkage estimates at the individual market level. The second challenge we face is the fact that orchestras differ on how they sell season subscriptions, leading to substantial unobserved effects on ticket sales across orchestras; an added benefit of our random-coefficients approach is that it incorporates a random effect that captures any shift in the dependent variable caused by unobservable factors across all events in each individual market, such as the unobservable effect of season subscriptions on single-ticket sales. The third methodological challenge is that program features are likely to interact requiring the estimation of a large set of pair-wise interactions. We solve this problem by mapping the interactions on a reduced space, arriving at a more parsimonious model formulation. The fourth methodological challenge relates to implementation of the model results beyond the relatively small sample of markets for which historical data was available. To overcome this limitation, we demonstrate how our model can be applied to markets not included in our sample, first using only managerial insight regarding the similarity between the focal market and the ones in our sample and by updating this subjective prior as ticket sales data become available.

Gut or Game? The Influence of Moral Intuitions on Decisions in Video Games

Recent theorizing on the role of morality in media entertainment suggests morality serves as a guiding force in audience reactions to content. Using moral foundations theory as a base, research has found significant associations between moral salience and audience preferences for and responses to film and television varying in their presentations of morality. Our study extends this work by testing the same relationship in video games. Because a distinguishing factor between video games and traditional media is interactivity, our study focuses on how moral salience predicts decisions made in a video game. We find that increased moral salience led to a decreased probability of moral violations, while decreased moral salience led to an observed random (50%) distribution of violations. This finding was largely stable across different morality subcultures (German, United States) and age groups (adolescents and elderly), with deviations from this pattern explained by theory. We interpret this as evidence for a gut or game explanation of decision making in video games. When users encounter virtual scenarios that prime their moral sensitivities, they rely on their moral intuitions; otherwise, they make satisficing decisions not as an indication of moral corruption but merely as a continuation of the virtual experience.

Breastfeeding Social Marketing: Lessons Learned from USDA's “Loving Support” Campaign

Social marketing involves the application of commercial marketing principles to advance the public good. Social marketing calls for much more than health communications campaigns. It involves four interrelated tasks: audience benefit, target behavior, essence (brand, relevance, positioning), and developing the "4Ps" (product, price, place, promotion) marketing mix. The ongoing U.S. Department of Agriculture "Loving Support Makes Breastfeeding Work" campaign was launched in 1997 based on social marketing principles to increase breastfeeding initiation rates and breastfeeding duration among Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) participants. Since then there have been improvements in breastfeeding duration in the country, and the majority of WIC women now initiate breastfeeding. Breastfeeding in public places is still not well accepted by society at large, and any and exclusive breastfeeding durations remain exceedingly low. Lessons learned from "Loving Support" and other campaigns indicate that it is important to design social marketing campaigns to target the influential societal forces (e.g., family and friends, healthcare providers, employers, formula industry, legislators) that affect women's decision and ability to breastfeed for the recommended amount of time. This will require formative research that applies the social-ecological model to different population segments, taking and identifying the right incentives to nudge more women to breastfeed for longer. Any new breastfeeding campaign needs to understand and take into account the information acquisition preferences of the target audiences. The vast majority of WIC women have mobile devices and are accessing social media. The Brazilian experience indicates that making breastfeeding the social norm can be done with a solid social marketing strategy. This is consistent with the recently released "Six Steps to Achieve Breastfeeding Goals for WIC Clinics," which identifies the need for exclusive breastfeeding to become the social norm at WIC clinics and strongly recommends for these clinics to adhere to the World Health Organization Code of Marketing of Breast-Milk Substitutes.

From Global to (G)local: Changing Patterns of Television Program Flows and Audience Preferences in Central and Eastern Europe

This article examines changing patterns of television program flows and audience preferences in the ten new European Union member states from postcommunist Central and Eastern Europe, focusing particularly on the historical course of internationalization of programming during the last two decades and on the amount and popularity of local production vis-à-vis imported programs. Special attention is paid to the spread and audience popularity of television formats, illustrating the overall tendency toward transnationalization of the Central and Eastern European television landscapes at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

Gender Role Portrayal in Television Advertisement: Evidence from Pakistan

This study aims to observe the gender role portrayal in food and non-food television advertisement in Pakistan, in order to find out gender discrimination (if any) and association of gender with different content variables. Content analysis of selected TV commercials was used to fulfill the purpose of this study. Services of two independent coders (business graduates) were utilized to code content variables for a sample of 103 commercials (54 food and 49 non-food commercials). Based on the extant literature, seven content variables were selected for this study including: main product user, voiceover, primary character, end comment, soundtrack level, activity level and aggression level. The gender role portrayals in both food and non-food commercials have been compared and discussed. There exists gender discrimination in Pakistani television advertisement, where males dominate more. The reason behind this phenomenon is expected to lie in social and cultural values. This male dominance is higher in food advertisement as compared to non-food advertisement. Results also favor the association of male character with the relatively higher activity and aggression levels in television commercials. The findings of this study are supportive for key players in advertising industry like advertisers and advertising agencies, for self-regulation of their advertising campaigns with respect to gender role. However, more important implication for them is to know about the forces of traditional cultural values and preferences of target audience, for effective planning of the commercials and forecasting their impact. Such knowledge can provide them a better base to assess the need for self-regulation of their advertising campaigns, guiding them towards making more successful commercials. This study reflects the true picture of gender discrimination in Pakistani television advertisement. It has been concluded using a well defined methodology, provides original data for Pakistan and can be considered a good reference for further analysis.

Acoustic and perceptual measures of SATB choir performances on two types of portable choral riser units in three singer-spacing conditions

Under controlled conditions, we assessed acoustically (long-term average spectra) and perceptually (singer survey, listener survey) six performances of an soprano, alto, tenor, and bass (SATB) choir ( N = 27) as it sang the same musical excerpt on two portable riser units (standard riser step height, taller riser step height) with varied dimensions of largely horizontal space (close spacing, lateral spacing, circumambient spacing) between singers. Given previous research that suggested horizontally spread spacing between choristers contributes to chorister perceptions of more efficient vocal production and audience preferences for choral sound, we wondered: (1) if spectra analyses might point to a possible acoustical explanation for auditor preferences; and (2) if increasing the height of riser steps to add more vertical space between rows of singers would affect choir sound. Statistical analyses of spectra data acquired from an audience position microphone found significant differences ( p < .001) in mean signal amplitudes among the various performances. The taller riser unit appeared to enhance modestly the contributions of horizontally spread lateral and circumambient singer spacing. These effects were most robust (c.2–4dB) in diffusion of higher frequency partials in the 2.4–3.7kHz range in and around the ‘singer’s formant’ frequency region on both riser units, and in 4.7–7.1kHz partials on the tall riser unit. All choristers (100%) thought horizontal singer spacing influenced choir sound; 92.59% of singers described this perceived influence as ‘moderate’ or ‘much.’ Most choristers (96.29%) thought riser step height influenced choral sound, with 62.95% of singers perceiving this influence as ‘moderate’ or ‘much.’ Singers thought spread spacing contributed to most comfortable vocal production, better hearing of self and ensemble, and best overall choir sound. Listener ( N = 21) survey results indicated significant preference for the overall sound of the spread singer conditions in close versus spread comparisons.

애니메이션 수용자의 인식유형과 취향에 관한 주관성연구

This is a scientific study of subjectivity on recognition types and preferences of animation audience. Therefore, Q-methodology was used as a methodology of this study. As a result, it was possible to find the various characteristics according to the preferences of audience on animation genres. The features of each type were classified into 3 types. First was an artistic and literary value-oriented type that explored storytelling and descriptive value. Second was a pictorial and aesthetic value-oriented type that explored visual beauty such as characters and Mise en scene. Third was a visual and entertainment value-oriented type that explored entertainment factors and attractions. Thus, according to the classification of preference types, it was inferred that digital image generation audience with an active preference that can create and consume images have developed a tendency that independently consumed their preferences based on thoroughly personal or subjective preferences rather than classified and accepted their preferred culture as their symbolic expressions of hierarchical position. In this aspect, Q-methodological consideration that is useful to analyze the subjectivity of audience could be a significant work. Nevertheless, this study alone could not reveal various generative contexts of specific preferences. It seems to have more significant results by applying various qualitative or quantitative methodologies together with this study and analyzing recognition types and preferences of audience.

Picturegoer: The Fan Magazine and Popular Film Culture in Britain During The Second World War

‘What agent of Chancellor Hitler is it who has suggested that we should all cower in darkness and terror “for the duration”?’, demanded George Bernard Shaw in a letter to the Times. Published on 5 ...

Britain Finds Andy Hardy: British Cinema Audiences and The American Way of Life in The Second World War

The years 1942 and 1943 saw great concern, on both sides of the Atlantic, about Anglo-American understanding. Almost one million American servicemen were to arrive on British shores by the end of 1...

Inside television audience measurement: Deconstructing the ratings machine

Based on empirical research in France, this article proposes a sociological analysis of television audience measurement (TAM), an operation in which people from various backgrounds (statisticians, engineers, marketing experts) coexist to produce numerical representations of television audiences. These are a major, basic currency in the television industry and, more broadly speaking, in television culture. This analysis departs from prevalent conceptions of ratings as either scientific and therefore faithful representations of audience preferences, or, from a critical perspective, as apparatuses of surveillance and domestication. Focusing on the technology of peoplemeters, it analyzes ratings as the product of a highly complex socio-technical network, which produces robust representations of the audience, accepted by a wide range of social actors.

Strongmen and Straw Men: Authoritarian Regimes and the Initiation of International Conflict

How do domestic institutions affect autocratic leaders' decisions to initiate military conflicts? Contrary to the conventional wisdom, I argue that institutions in some kinds of dictatorships allow regime insiders to hold leaders accountable for their foreign policy decisions. But the preferences of these autocratic domestic audiences vary, with domestic audiences in civilian regimes being more skeptical of using military force than the military officers who form the core constituency in military juntas. In personalist regimes in which there is no effective domestic audience, no predictable mechanism exists for restraining or removing overly belligerent leaders, and leaders tend to be selected for personal characteristics that make them more likely to use military force. I combine these arguments to generate a series of hypotheses about the conflict behavior of autocracies, and test the hypotheses using new measures of authoritarian regime type. The findings indicate that despite the conventional focus on differences between democracies and non-democracies, substantial variation in conflict initiation occurs among authoritarian regimes. Moreover, civilian regimes with powerful elite audiences are no more belligerent overall than democracies. The result is a deeper understanding of the conflict behavior of autocracies, with important implications for scholars as well as policymakers.

From Television to Multi-Platform

/ This article examines economic aspects of convergence and of multi-platform expansion in the media sector. Focusing on television broadcasters in the UK, it analyses the recent migration of conventional media towards multi-platform strategies and asks whether digitization is making content delivery more resource—intensive than before or whether it is facilitating greater efficiency. Findings suggest that adaptation to a multi-platform outlook on the part of conventional media requires investment in staffing and re-versioning of content. Funding this, especially in a period of economic downturn, has encouraged a more selective approach towards content, with concomitant implications for diversity. Notwithstanding generally low commercial returns from online activities so far, the potential economic advantages to be had from multi-platform are significant. The experience of UK broadcasters suggests a well-executed ‘360-degree’ approach to commissioning and distribution will increase the value that can be realized from any given universe of content, partly because of extended opportunities for consumption of that content, but also because modes of engagement in a digital multi-platform context allow for an improved audience experience and for better signalling of audience preferences back to suppliers.

Repertory and riot: The relocation of plays from the Red Bull to the Cockpit stage

On Shrove Tuesday of 1617 the newly built Cockpit playhouse was attacked by a band of ‘lewde and loose persons, apprentices and others’. The uprising has been interpreted as a powerful expression of audience demand: the Red Bull audience’s response to the transfer of their plays to a prohibitively expensive hall playhouse. This article explores the centrality of the riot to repertory-motivated readings of the Red Bull, examining the connection in criticism between audience preference and repertory. At the same time, it provides a reassessment of the historical circumstances of the riot, and re-examines the evidence to offer it context beyond theatre-historical interpretations. I argue that reading the 1617 riot in terms of repertory management and audience satisfaction is not as inevitable as it has previously appeared, and suggest the need for repertory approaches that go further to recognise the successful relocation of plays across theatre spaces and audiences.

Can you tell me something about yourself?

The self-presentation skills of children and adolescents with high-functioning autistic spectrum disorder (HFASD) and typically developing (TD) controls were compared, in response to both hypothetical and real life situations. In both situations, 26 HFASD and 26 TD participants were prompted to describe themselves twice, first in a baseline condition, and later in a goal-directed condition where specific information was given about the preferences and demands of the audience. Confirming and extending previous research, both TD and HFASD participants exhibited a tendency to be more positive when describing themselves in a goal-directed condition. However, HFASD participants were less strategic than TD participants in responding to the information they were given about the audience preferences and demands. Possible explanations and implications of the results are discussed.

Audience duplication and its determinants: a study in the multichannel and multiculture television market in Guangzhou, China

This study examines audience duplication, the extent to which the audience of one program also watches the other, and its determinants. Using peoplemeter data from Guangzhou, a multichannel and multicultural television market in China, the study tests the intertwining effects of media structural factors and audience preference factors on audience duplication levels of program pairs. The results show significant effects of the two types of factors. A regression model was established in which these two types of factors together explained 59% of the total variance in audience duplication.

The Tone of Local Presidential News Coverage

There is little research on the tone of local news coverage of the presidency, despite the public's preference for local rather than national news. I use theories of media politics, based primarily on the profit-seeker model of news coverage, to explore the impact of newspaper characteristics, audience preferences, and story characteristics on local newspaper coverage of the presidency. Based on a sample of 288 stories taken from the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, I demonstrate that everyday local newspaper coverage of the presidency is slightly more negative than positive and that audience support for the president, newspaper resources, and corporate ownership affect the tone of local newspaper coverage of the presidency.

They stole the show!: Indian films in coastal Tanzania, 1950s1980s

Utilizing rare and innovative source materials, including hundreds of interviews and survey responses, as well as box-office receipts and archival sources, this article provides path-breaking insights into the history of audience preferences in Tanzania from the 1950s to the 1980s. It reveals a long-term passion for Indian films amongst Tanzanians of all class, ethnic and gender backgrounds, and explores the nature of movie-going in Tanzania. This article also describes innovative exhibition practices inspired by the overwhelming audience demand for Indian films, such as reeling and a black market trade in cinema tickets. While hinting at the complex reasons why Indian films became so popular among East African audiences, the article adds to the increasingly vocal calls for recognition of the place of both audiences and non-western producers and distributors in our understanding of global media flows.

Sex, art and sophistication: the meanings of ‘Continental’ cinema

From the late 1930s until the early 1970s, foreign language films were commonly categorised by Australian film exhibitors and distributors as ‘Continental’. Continental films were earmarked for exhibition to audiences described as ‘discerning’ and ‘sophisticated’, epithets which distinguished their more ‘discriminating’ taste from the popular preferences of mainstream cinema audiences. But ‘Continental’ had ambiguous connotations. Foreign language cinemas exploited the association of ‘Continental’ with high culture, for example, by appropriating French icons, but ‘Continental’ could also mean scurrilous and sordid. It was the Continental cinema audience's apparent transcendence of these moral ambiguities, its seemingly effortless appreciation of ‘art’, and its cosmopolitan approval of select aspects of foreign ‘culture’ that demonstrated its sophistication and cultural distinction. In its attitudes towards sex, art and ethnic diversity, the Continental cinema audience anticipated the more widespread social and cultural changes that would transform Australian society in the 1960s and 1970s.

The paradox of television privatization: When more is less

The argument of this article is that privatization of the audiovisual sector has had unintended consequences. The proliferation of private television channels has fragmented advertising markets and created incentives for the increasing importation of cheap American programming. This phenomenon is evident despite the fact that the demand for such programming is eclipsed by audience preferences to see their own cultures on the small screen. Thus the paradox of television privatization is that, in cultural terms, it has led to less, rather than more, consumer choice. While the debates about Americanization have mostly dwelled on the loss of cultural diversity, the consequences for the domination of American popular culture have not only been the erosion of national identities, but also the transformation of local politics as people's political perceptions become increasingly affected by American political reference points and categories.