Niche and Mainstream audiences

There are two types of audiences, niche and mainstream. A niche audience is aimed at a small quantity of people which is very specific to the media text. A mainstream audience is aimed at a very large audience and many uses and gratifications can be gained from consuming these texts.

An example of niche audiences are programmes like time team or cult films. An example of a niche channel is MUTV. These appeal to niche audiences because of things like the time it's shown, the information given and the channel it is aired on. MUTV is a channel on sky where football fans can watch exclusive footage of interviews with players, full games and also the reserve teams. As it is aired on sky it makes it exclusive to people with sky subscriptions. Not only that, but it's very unlikely that people who aren't Manchester united fans will pay to subscribe to the channel. Niche programmes may have less uses and gratifications than mainstream programmes as the audience is smaller. Niche programmes may not allow the audience to discuss with their friends and family as it is not well known or not appealing to a wide range of people. Channels such as this may be less talked about than mainstream channels such as the BBC and ITV as less people know about it/have an interest.

Examples of programmes with mainstream audiences are Eastenders, The X Factor and Lost. Mainstream programmes tend to be shown on popular channels such as BBC1 and ITV at peak times in order to attract large audiences. Programmes like these get a lot of attention on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook and when people see posts about these it urges them to watch the text too. Eastenders is shown on BBC1 at around 7:30pm and so is very very easy for audiences to access as most people have the mainstream channels. Most people tend to be home from work/school by this time and so therefore leaves the audience quite open. Audiences can get a large range of uses and gratifications from mainstream programmes such as Eastenders and is a main reason it is largely watched. In Eastenders the cast is a very varied; there is young people, old people, families etc. and therefore there is something for everyone to watch. Drama in a programme lets the viewer escape for the duration of the time it's on. and that is the enjoyment the audience will get out of a programme like Eastenders. The mode of address is very mainstream. An example of this is at the end of each programme it ends on a cliffhanger, leaving the viewer wanting to watch the next episode. A good example of this is in a recent episode Carl crashed his car pushing Phil through the window screen. It left the audience wanting to see what happened to Phil.