By Rebeca Gonzalez, MEC
ITV’s current weekend prime-time schedule seems to be a battle of the giants with both X factor and Downton Abbey pulling in 23 million viewers. Downton Abbey first aired on 26th September 2010 at 9pm on ITV, with an average number of viewers of 10.5 million people in the first series. It’s success confirmed it’s spot for the second series in 2011 which has attracted 11 million viewers since airing. This contrasts to the established X factor, which is now in its 8th series since airing in September 2004. The show has seen a decline in the last year of 686,564, perhaps due to the dramatic change in the judges panel. Using MediaZ, we can see people perceptions of the programmes and what their attraction to the show is.
MECs MediaZ tool is a study which asks the viewers whether they love/like/dislike various media properties, whether they watch it regularly/occasionally/rarely and what qualities they think exemplifies the properties. These measures can help indicate how people feel about certain shows and give insight as to the cause of their popularity. Using MediaZ we can look at the perceptions and personalities of these two colossal weekend programmes. Two prime-time TV programmes included in wave 3 of MediaZ are X factor and Downton Abbey. Interestingly, despite Downton Abbey’s high popularity, 34% of respondents are not interested (4% above the UK average across all TV programmes) and a further 23% (6% above UK average) have never heard of it or don’t know much about it. However, out of the 22% of viewers who love/like watching Downton Abbey, 90% of them watch it regularly; denoting the loyalty of the viewers and the consistency of the show. Additionally, the respondents said they regularly/occasionally talk about the programme (26%) as well as recommending it to a friend or family (19%). This suggests the show has characteristics which are regularly talked about (thus increasing interest and viewing numbers) - this is supported by the 1,000 online mentions following episodes 3 and 4, 90% of which were on Twitter.
In contrast, X Factor viewers have more of a ‘take it or leave it’ attitude, whereby more people said they find the show ‘OK’ (22%) or ‘dislike it’ (21%) verses 14% who say they ‘love it’. This attitude has recently developed as in 2009, 22% of the respondents said they loved the show, suggesting it is losing its loyal fans. However, only 3% of the respondents said they had never heard of X factor, showing its huge brand presence and wide target audience compared to the 23% who have not heard of Downton Abbey. Out of the 35% of viewers who either love or like the show, 85% of them said that they watch it regularly, showing that the show has consistent attraction. X factor generally has higher talkability (42%) with 26% of respondents regularly/occassionally recommending it to a friend/family. This could be down to the younger respondents who are more likely to use social media as a source for discussion. The X factor has high online mentions, receiving 35,000 X factor mentions across all social mediums following episodes 12 and 13, 90% of which were also on Twitter).
The MediaZ tool can help personify a show through various traits that the consumer believe it to have. This personification can help distinguish X factor from Downton Abbey and highlight what type of audience would be more likely to watch them. X Factor is perceived by the respondents to be more adventurous (37% vs 15%), fun (76% vs 25%), successful (60% vs 57%) and modern (42% vs 4%). Whereas, Downton Abbey is perceived by their audience to be more creative (53% vs 51%), intelligent (34% vs 4%), trustworthy (40% vs 4%), stylish (57% vs 16%), authentic (55% vs 9%), high quality (74% vs 22%) and friendly (43% vs 22).
As illustrated by the popularity of these two very different programmes, there is no generic solution as to what makes a show popular, this is essentially down to the targeted consumers and how they relate to the show. The programmes are both very different, as represented in the graph below, which adds a spice of variety to the Channel’s prime weekend spots.
