Doctor Who: Audience and Industries

 Audience

Reminder: demographics and psychographics

Demographics: The audience classified through ‘fixed’ characteristics such as: age, gender, race/ethnicity, where you live, job.

Psychographics: The audience classified through beliefs, values, hobbies and interests such as: Strugglers, Reformers, Aspirers and Mainstreamers. 

General audience notes:

• Mainstream family audience – broad appeal as millions of people watch the BBC.
• Long-running which shows it appeals to mainstream audience (age 10-40+). 
• An Unearthly Child given PG certificate – parental guidance.
• Demographics: A-E class as some complex plot points but also action that is easy to understand.
• Gender: split down middle (although traditional science fiction fans were male, this has changed over time. From 1970-2010 the female sci-fi audience grew by 22%).

Audience pleasures

We can apply Blumler and Katz's Uses and Gratifications theory when analysing the audience pleasures offered by Doctor Who: An Unearthly Child. Remember, we must consider it from the perspective of a viewer in the 1960s who would have reacted in quite a different way to an audience in 2020. Remember, the four key categories for Uses and Gratifications theory:

INFORMATION/SURVEILLANCE: learning information that you did not already know. Doctor Who offers its audience an education about space travel, science and history.  

PERSONAL IDENTITY: personally relating to something - seeing your lifestyle on screen. Think about how different audiences may identify with Susan, her teachers or the Doctor.

DIVERSION/ENTERTAINMENT: escapism and being entertained away from your normal life. Science Fiction is a classic genre for escapism - what examples of this could be found in the episode?

PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS: caring about characters and wanting to find out what happens to them. This is the first episode of four - which characters do you think the audience will want to follow on their journey? 

The 3 Vs

VISCERAL PLEASURE: Physical thrill of watching something e.g hairs on the back of your neck in a horror film, sport, big explosions. 

VICARIOUS PLEASURE: Experiencing something through the characters (e.g. time/space travel). 

VOYEURISTIC PLEASURE: Watching something you wouldn't normally get a chance to see (e.g. inside TARDIS).

Doctor Who fan culture: Whovians

Doctor Who now has an international online fan culture of events, fan fiction, fan-edited trailers and more. The BBC also produces merchandise to sell to this audience. 

The 'Whoniverse'

The ‘Whoniverse’ is made up of podcasts, spin-offs (other shows that derive from the main Doctor Who and have settings, ideas, characters in common e.g. K-9 which is a kid’s show about Doctor Who’s robot dog) and documentaries, behind-the-scenes, sneak peaks and so on.

In the most recent series of Doctor Who, this fan culture actually appeared in an episode: 

You can read more about Doctor Who's fans and its cultural impact in the extension articles at the bottom of this post. 

Industries

TV industry in 1963

There were only two TV channels in the UK in 1963: BBC and ITV. 

In terms of technology, videotape had only been in use for seven years when An Unearthly Child was made. It allowed the BBC to create the space and time travel effects we can see in the episode which were considered amazing at the time. 

In 1967, BBC2 launched as the first colour TV channel. BBC1 and ITV then switched to colour in 1969 as more people bought colour TVs. 

Compared to the digital and streaming TV landscape of today, 1960s television was a different world.

Importance of Doctor Who to BBC

Doctor Who is one of the most iconic franchises that the BBC has. It has been shown all over the world through BBC Worldwide and generates huge income for the BBC.

In 2014, a BBC Worldwide Report stated Sherlock and Doctor Who as the BBC’s biggest exports of the past year. The worldwide simulcast (simultaneous transmission) of “The Day of the Doctor” in 2013 saw this episode air at the same time in 98 countries on six continents.

 

Doctor Who franchise: spin-offs 

The BBC has maximised the popularity of the Doctor Who franchise by creating a series of spin-offs that build on the same universe or characters as the original show. These include:

• K9
• Sarah Jane Adventures
• Torchwood
• Class

These spin-offs allow the BBC to target slightly different audiences while still taking advantage of the huge Doctor Who fanbase. 

Spin-offs - opening titles:

Audience and Industry: blog tasks

Create a new blogpost called 'Doctor Who: Audience and Industry blog tasks' and answer the following questions:

Audience

1) Who is the target audience for Doctor Who? Do you think it has changed since 1963?

The initial target audience for doctor who was teenagers from the 1960's hence the main focus being a teenagers and there being a school setting. However over the course of the air time of the show, the content has changed to better fit the aging audience and to keep loyal fans returning.

2) What audience pleasures are offered by Doctor Who - An Unearthly Child? Apply Blumler and Katz's Uses and Gratifications theory to the episode. Make sure you provide specific examples from the episode to support your ideas.

Personal Identity: The main characters being a young teenager in the 1960s with similar interests and style in music appropriate for that era, two middle-class white teachers who follow gender stereotypes related to the almost patriarchal time period and the school setting provides the audience with something to relate to as TVs were more commonly found in white middle-class nuclear family homes meaning the audience would largely consist of people in that demographic. 

Personal Relationships: The audience might see themselves in the young teenage actor and will tune in to see what happens to her throughout the story, or they might potentially idolise her or the teachers which will push them to care about what happens to the characters.

Diversion (Escapism):The science fiction themes concerning the TARDIS offer escapism as a science fiction concept which does not exist in our world and acts as the main enigma in the show being a inexplicable means of transport.

Surveillance (Information / Facts): The main characters speaking to one another concerning the girl's living situation being a junkyard incites an enigma code as it is an unusual situation whilst also providing more information about our main characters.

3) What additional Uses and Gratifications would this episode provide to a modern 2020s audience?

diversion/entertainment, information/ surveillance

4) Thinking of the 3 Vs audience pleasures (Visceral, Vicarious and Voyeuristic pleasures), which of these can be applied to An Unearthly Child?

Visceral and Vicarious apply to An Unearthly Child.

5) What kind of online fan culture does Doctor Who have? Give examples.

Online doctor who fans are called whovians and often discuss the show on forums as communities called "fandoms". The Whoniverse also supplies the fans with audience pleasures as they get a more introspective view on how the show is produced.

Industries

1) What was the television industry like in 1963? How many channels were there?

The television industry was sparse in 1963 as there were only two channels: the BBC and ITV.

2) How does An Unearthly Child reflect the level of technology in the TV industry in 1963?

The special effects are quite primitive and there is very little amounts of editing, most of the footage is raw for this reason as computers were not technologically advanced.

3) Why is Doctor Who such an important franchise for the BBC? 

Doctor who is one of the longest running British TV shows of all time, which means it has garnered quite the fan base and has become a globally recognisable cultural phenomenon.

4) What other programmes/spin-offs are part of the wider Doctor Who franchise?

The Whoniverse, which consists of behind the scenes, podcasts , spin-offs such as K9, Sarah Jane adventures, Torchwood and Class.

5) Why does the Doctor Who franchise have so much merchandise available? Give examples. 

It's long run-time, seasonal introduction of new characters and large fanbase has brought about a large amount of merchandise as people identify with the show and its characters.