72 consumption of the magazine, however, does not use up the text. Magazines often find their way into waiting rooms and reception areas to be consumed by many readers long after they were initially purchased.
The second market which can be identified when taking Picard’s (1989: 17 – 19)
‘dual product market’ proposition into consideration is the audience commodity. The audience as a commodity has great money making potential. Sport is rapidly becoming defined in relation to its commercial appeal. Sporting bodies no longer view the development of their codes as one of their overriding objectives. Instead, they emphasise the packaging of sport as a commercial product which can be easily sold to sponsors, audiences and broadcasters. Sport has clearly become part of the commercial entertainment industry (Baker and Glavovic, 1996: 250 – 252). For this particular reason, the audience as a commodity will be discussed in detail in the following section as it is a major money spinner for various sporting bodies around the world.
73 an audience as a set of consumers rather than as a group or public. It links
sender and receiver in a ‘calculative’ rather than a normative or social relationship, as a cash transaction between producer and consumer rather than a communication relationship. It ignores the internal social relations between individuals, since these are of little interest to service providers. It privileges social-economic criteria and focuses on media consumption rather than reception.
This so-called ‘calculative’ relationship that McQuail (2005: 399 – 400) alludes to emphasises the capitalist nature of commercial television networks. Commercial television structures are straightforward in that they are geared towards the procurement of wealth.
Usually this occurs through two distinct approaches. Firstly, commercial television networks will create programmes for profit and, secondly, use the various channels at their disposal for advertising space (Ang, 1991: 26 – 32; Abelman and Atkin, 2002: 18 - 20). The driving force behind commercial television is purely an economic matter and is “principally connected with the capitalist concern of making money” (Ang, 1991: 26). By incorporating television material that is both entertaining and laden with advertising in the broadcast schedule, it is made clear that commercial networks are solely focused on the production of capital.
Commercial networks and broadcast corporations set out to give the audience what it wants in order to keep viewers happy and tuned in to their channels (Ang, 1991: 28; Hellman, 1999:
105 - 129). They are interested in attracting the largest possible audience with the intention of selling them to the highest paying advertisers.
3.4.1 Selling the audience
The idea of the audience as a commodity suggests that somewhere along the line the viewers are ‘sold’ to somebody else. Audiences are the primary commodities of the mass media and large scale media companies produce audiences and deliver them to advertisers. Media programming is used to attract audiences to the specific channel in question (Mosco, 1996:
148 – 150). Television networks create audiences by broadcasting media texts that certain people will find interesting and entertaining. What this means is that a large number of people are watching the broadcast text. This is the constructed audience. The constructed audience is then ‘sold’ to advertisers as they are exposed to their products during the programmes.
Commercial television networks transmit programmes in order to carry advertisements. The adverts are usually inserted between programmes or imbedded in the primary text itself during commercial breaks (Ang, 1991: 26 – 27). Advertisers pay large sums of money to gain access to this already constructed audience so that they can distribute their messages. Picard
74 (1989: 17 – 19) supports this idea and asserts that it is more accurate to consider access to the audience as the item that is sold opposed to the actual audience members viewing the broadcast texts. When the audience is viewed as a commodity the actual television programme is nothing more than a method used to deliver the audience to the advertisers (Abelman and Atkin, 2002: 18 – 20). Their value is purely economic and watching television becomes a commercial transaction. Grossberg et al concur with these sentiments when they state that the “media produce an audience for their own media products and then deliver that audience to another media producer, namely, an advertiser” (1998: 215). Since the more popular programmes draw a greater audience, the associated advertising space is more expensive. The slot is more beneficial to the advertiser as a larger number of people are exposed to the product (Ang, 1991: 26 – 27).
Audience members actually work for the advertisers (and are exploited for their efforts in the process) by giving up their free time to watch the media. This so called ‘labour’
is then packaged and sold by the media to the advertisers as a new kind of commodity (McQuail, 1997: 12 – 24). The audience then has to purchase the final media product in order to consume it and at the same time pay for their own exposure to advertising material (McQuail, 1997: 12 – 24). A good example highlighting the process of purchasing exposure to advertising is evident in an analysis of any popular magazine title. Sports Illustrated magazine has many full page colour advertisements as well as various forms of leaflets and promotional cards inserted within the packaged magazine. The 2008 Swimsuit calendar, which could attract even more male readers to the specific edition, comes free with the purchase and is covered in advertising logos as well.
The DStv advertising rate card (see Appendix 2) shows the cost of various advertising slots on the different DStv channels for the month of February, 2008. What is interesting to note is that advertising slots on Supersport during prime-time on weekends cost R10 000 whereas weekday prime-time slots cost R7 000. From this, one can deduce that more people are engaging with sporting material over the weekends than there are during the week. The rugby highlights and talk show programme Boots & All, broadcast on Thursday evenings from 20h00 – 21h00 attracts advertising costs of R12 000 per slot, the highest of the sports specific support programmes. To reiterate what Ang (1991: 27) suggests, the more popular programmes draw in larger audience numbers and, therefore, advertising prices during these
75 programmes are generally the most expensive. This suggests then that more people watch Boots & All than the other magazine programmes on Supersport during the week. Television networks, according to Baker and Glavovic (1996: 254) use sport as a means of increasing or boosting viewership. This, when looked at in the line of the above discussion, can be seen as a shrewd manoeuvre to attract audiences and gain greater advertiser appeal.
3.4.2 Knowing your audience
A great deal of market research is conducted so that the advertisers know exactly what type of person uses their product, what media patterns they follow and ultimately which texts they consume. Major advertisers are said to consume audiences that have literally been produced on demand (Gandy, 2004: 327 – 341). A good example here, and relevant to the overall topic, is the 2007 Rugby World Cup final involving South Africa and England. The match was broadcast live on both Supersport and SABC2. Supersport received the highest bid for a single advert in South African television history. The commercial advertising Supa Quick tyres cost the company and its advertising agency R151 000 for the once off 30 second deal.
The proceeds generated from the advertising sale were donated by Supersport to the Chris Burger / Petro Jackson Players Fund13 (see Appendix 3). Despite the fact that the profits were donated to charity by Supersport, Supa Quick was able to expose its brand to a large audience attracted to the television broadcast at that particular time by the screening of the Rugby World Cup Final.
The audience constructed by Supersport would have been identified by Supa Quick as the ideal target market. In other words, those watching the match would have been seen by Supa Quick as people likely to purchase their products. Personnel at Supersport have suggested that the euphoria surrounding the 2007 Rugby World Cup final created an extraordinary demand for commercial exposure (see Appendix 3). The 2007 Rugby World Cup Final was a large scale international event which was made even more appealing on a local scale because South Africa was involved. The hype of the entire competition created during the initial rounds and the drama of the knock-out stages culminated during this once
13 The Chris Burger / Petro Jackson Players’ Fund is an organisation that assists rugby players who have been seriously injured during matches. They assist the players by providing them with wheelchairs and other comforts to improve the quality of their lives. The Players Fund spends a lot of time educating people on safe rugby and how catastrophic injuries can be avoided (www.playersfund.org.za).
76 off fixture. The constructed audience was then ‘sold’ to Supa Quick who wanted exposure for their various advertising messages. People were not watching the game for the adverts. They were watching the primary event, the final. Advertisers purchase the audience members’
attention briefly and deliver their product messages.
3.4.3 Audience as the consumer
A counter argument is provided which suggests that the audience is the consumer and not the consumed entity (Abelman and Atkin, 2002: 18 – 20). The counter argument is based primarily on the fact that people are rational individuals with a goal or purpose in life and therefore make decisions on which programmes they want to watch and when it suits them best to do so. People, more often than not, have well-informed programme preferences which govern the television broadcasts that they do or do not watch (Abelman and Atkin, 2002: 18 – 20). Choice has a great role to play in the distinction between audience as consumer and audience as commodity within commercial broadcasting. Commercial networks provide great choice to viewers to appease their interests. Choice is more about the quantity of options available to the viewer and comes with the hope of meeting their demands. The ability to choose between programmes gives the viewer an element of control in their experience and over what they consume (Hellman, 1999: 105 – 129). It is important to note the relative power that is held by the audience. This power emphasises the broadcasters’ need to transmit quality programming that appeals to the audience. These sentiments can be related to the changes made to sports in an attempt to make events more television-friendly.
Even though commercial networks and broadcasters are for the most part concerned with the generation of wealth and financial revenue they still have to take the audience’s demand for programme quality and diversity into account. Audience numbers may diminish leading to poorer ratings and a weakened ability to attract advertisers willing to pay premium rates if the broadcasters do not meet the needs of the viewers (Abelman and Atkin, 2002: 18 – 20). The different media produce commodities and cultural texts which are consumed and used by the people constituting the audience (Grossberg et al, 1998: 235 – 238). When seen as consumers, audiences are identified according to their tastes and interests – by what they purchase and by what they own (Grossberg et al, 1998: 209 – 215). The audience is
“constantly working, gathering information on what products exist, deciding what is best for
77 them to buy, and eventually, going out and buying them” (Grossberg et al, 1998: 215). As consumers, the audience members have their own interests at heart.
In light of the above two arguments it is fair to suggest that the viewers can be construed as both commodities and consumers. In an attempt to maximise their own profits the television networks would see the audience as a commodity that can be readily gathered together and ‘sold’ to advertisers. At the same time however, the audience can be viewed as a group of consumers who set out to meet their own interests and expectations by watching programming that appeals to them. They consume what they want to through the availability of choice. The advertisers may see the audience as taking up a position somewhere in between the two poles. They would see audiences as commodities in that they are purchased from the networks and exposed to their products. At the same time, they could potentially see audiences as consumers because they would want them to consume the adverts and accept the intended meanings and messages embedded within the text.