Understanding Audience: Changes in Contemporary Television Industry

Running head: RESEARCH PROPOSAL
Research proposal
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

1RESEARCH PROPOSAL
Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction................................................................................................................................2
1.1 Background of the study............................................................................................................2
1.2 Research aim..............................................................................................................................3
1.3 Research questions.....................................................................................................................3
1.4 Research hypothesis...................................................................................................................3
2.0 Literature review........................................................................................................................4
3.0 Research methodology...............................................................................................................7
3.1 Research philosophy..................................................................................................................7
3.2 Research Approach....................................................................................................................8
3.3 Research Design........................................................................................................................9
3.4 Data collection and Data Analysis.............................................................................................9
3.5 Sampling..................................................................................................................................10
3.6 Reliability and Validity............................................................................................................11
3.7 Ethical consideration...............................................................................................................11
4.0 Project timeline........................................................................................................................13
5.0 References................................................................................................................................14

2RESEARCH PROPOSAL
Topic: Understanding Audience
1.0 Introduction
This report will examine the changes in the contemporary television industry and how the
behaviour of the audience have changed significantly in the past decade. The influence of Pay
TV on audience engagement will also be evaluated to identify the change. Globalization has
changed the global television industry as there has been significant increase in the use of online
medium. The development of online drama series and other forms of entertainment shows have
changed the perspective of viewership and the perception of audience.
1.1 Background of the study
The television industry had once been the only source of audio visual dramatic content
but those days are long gone. The 21st century has seen unprecedented change in the television
industry where the role of online media has changed significantly. The advancement of the
internet and development of mobile applications have provided significant challenges to the
television industry in terms of content creation and attraction the attention of the consumers.
The number of consumers using digital media content as their only source of entertainments have
increased significant especially the millennials and generation Y (Van Dijck and Poell 2015).
These technologies have been integrated into the lives of the consumers and have become a daily
habit for most of them. The impact of these factors have more indirect and direct and the
audiences have contributed to shaping up the new culture. Media entertainment has experienced
shift from ages and will still change based on the interaction of the consumers with media. In
most of the research conducted, the inclusion of the audience engagement has been missing from
the media theory (D'heer and Verdegem 2015). The way the audience used to interact with the

3RESEARCH PROPOSAL
media in the previous years have changed significantly due the change in the interface.
Therefore, this study will aim to make the media audience visible into the media theory as the
interpretive activities have been avoided in majority of the cases.
1.2 Research aim
The objective of the study is to examine the diverse ways in which the audiences have
been interacting with contemporary television industry. The study will also evaluate the ways in
which the television industry has adapted to the change in the viewership of content. The
influence of PayTV such as Netflix on the engagement of the audiences will also be examined.
The objective of the study are as follows:
 To examine the ways audiences interact with contemporary television
 To examine the television formats and programming responded to technological and
subsequent audience
 To evaluate the impact of PayTV such as Netflix on audience engagement with
television
1.3 Research questions
 What are the ways audiences interact with contemporary television?
 How are television formats and programming responding to technological and
subsequent audience?
 What is the impact of PayTV such as Netflix on audience engagement with television?