Audience Analysis of FRIENDS

The first part of the survey

According to the result of the survey, close to 80 percent of the participants said that they watch television for less than three hours and they considered themselves light viewers. Almost everyone said that they watch television in the evening, but have no specific program in mind when flipping the channels. More than 80 percent of the participants said that the role of television is entertainment or leisure and only a few indicated its role as information provider or as a criticism of idealized society.

Doing an analysis of the first part of the survey was quite simple, because the answers were very similar for most of the questions.The interesting outcome of the survey was that most people thought of the television medium as a source of entertainment. Watching television during spare time and flipping through channels after dinner has become a habitual routine, a meaningless experience. It is also important to take notice of the participants’ age. There happened to be a bias of involving a certain age group for this survey, but it has led me to study this younger generation more in depth. I realized that young people are less challenged by what television provides. They are more likely to stare at the screen and laugh at humorous comments instead of reading the text. I reached such conclusion when I noticed that majority of the young people explained the show Friends with a single word ‘entertaining’, without an effort to provide any other expression. Basically, there was no differentiation in judgments about the show, whether they liked it or not, whether they regularly watched it or not. I predicted that there must be hundreds of different programs on television each with its unique contents and messages, yet most people simplified its role as a source of entertainment.

The second part of the suvey

As mentioned earlier, second part of our survey consisted of questions directed towards the show “Friends” According to our participants, only about 20 percent were regular viewers of the show. The key difference we wanted to see here was between those who watch the show alone and those who watch with company. The reason for this particular interest was because we wanted to see if there was difference in interpretation of the show between those who have no influence of others and those who are more likely to be influenced by others. The results show that those who watch the show with company are more likely to talk about the show than those who watch it alone. However, when asked about the issues discussed with others, the majority said that they talk about things such as ‘who is hot’ and gossip that goes behind the show. The topics were very superficial and didn’t involve any exchange of opinions of the show itself. Only few gave answers like idealism, perfectionism or promotion as the main issue being raised about the show.

The second interesting finding was the attractiveness of the show. Many people said that they like the show because it is funny, and they would watch it because it is funny. More interestingly, people said that they don’t really like the show because it is unrealistic and repetitive but would still watch it because there is nothing else to watch on television. ‘Just because the show happens to be on television’ and ‘means of killing time’ was also included as answers to why they would watch the show.
At this point, I predicted that the show Friends does not motivate viewers to regularly watch the show, but more importantly, it does not motivate viewers to think about any messages, or think at all. The answer to this assumption has become clear with the next sets of questions. Most people agreed that there was no profound message within the show and majority of the participants were not able to find a character that they could relate to. In another words, rarely did people see themselves in relation to the characters or the storyline, but only thought of it as a life of someone else in some place different from theirs.

The general comments of the show were negative, but the humorous aspect of the show was rated highly. Some people even mentioned its stupidity and superficiality as the reason for its humor. I came to the conclusion that the show Friends is an entertainment that does not require too much knowledge or thinking while watching the show and does not leave too much behind after watching the show. A moment of amusement was this show’s key factor in surviving the endless flipping of channels. Ironically, majority of the participants rated the show highly and even said that they would recommend it to others. This irony emphasizes viewing attitudes of the audiences once again, prioritizing leisure purposes before ‘reading’ television.

Here is my conclusion