Secondary Research: Box Office Figures Research

During our media lessons, we felt it important to learn how to distinguish between quantative and qualitative research. We also learnt about how both can be valuable when identifying and catering to a chosen target audience.

Quantitative research is ‘Explaining phenomena by collecting numerical data that are analysed using mathematically based methods (in particular statistics)’. The most common form of quantitative research is surveys. Quantitative research is useful for finding out specific information such as ‘Which is the most popular?’ The main benefit of quantitative research is that, if conducted properly, it can provide very accurate statistical information. However, one of the biggest shortcomings of quantitative research is that, whilst it can make it clear what is popular, it provides little insight into why something is popular.

Qualitative research is ‘Research that is used to gain an understanding of underlying reasons, opinions, and motivations. It provides insights into the problem or helps to develop ideas or hypotheses for potential quantitative research’. The most common form of qualitative research is interviews. Qualitative research helps to address the why question: it is a means of speculating as to why something is popular. However, unlike quantitative research, qualitative research cannot be measured or quantified accurately.

In order to obtain accurate quantative data, we, as a class, resorted to the BFI's Statistical Yearbook due to the fact it is beyond the scope of any survey  we could ever conduct by ourselves in the time frame given. In the BFI's own words, 'The Statistical Yearbook presents in one place all the available statistics on UK film and the UK film industry.'

In 2014 the 'Romance' genre ranked 13th, this is primarily due to the low percentage of releases (40) in comparison to the top ranking genre (Comedy), which released a total of 136 films. Even though the romance genre ranked quite low, it still manage to earn £15.6 million in terms of Gross Box Office and the top most performing title was 'The Fault in Our Stars'.

In the previous year the 'Romance' genre ranked higher (6th), which is strange because that genre released 11 fewer films that year in comparison to 2014. However in 2012 the 'Romance' genre managed to earn £46.5 million more and the top most performing title was the very popular 'The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2'.

I think that our film opening would most suit the age range of 15+ due to the nature of the mature themes (long-distance relationship with an ongoing affair). This classification proved to be most popular with the highest number of releases (304). Despite this it did not manage to earn the most money in terms of Gross Box Office. It only earned £293.6, whereas the 12A classification earned £477.7. This is mainly due to the popularity of the top performing title (The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies) and it's successful 'Fantasy' genre, which ranked 4th in 2014 and earned £104.0.

As you can see from the BFI's 'Top 10 '15' classified films, 2014' the romance genre does not rank. This would indicate that this genre attracts a 'niche' audience. As a group we need to investigate how to attract this niche market to our film opening by collecting qualitative data. This will be difficult due to the lack of funds to promote our independent film opening. The following table on the 'Significant greater female audience share' fortifies the point on the fact the romance genre is one that interests a niche market. We had expected to see the romance genres ranking highly with the female audience but there is not a single listing. This has led our group to increase the investment of time spent on trying to find ways to interest the niche audience.

Significance: Romance films are not exactly the most popular of genres with the British public, however this is because most of the BFI's statistics on successful films of 2014 (and previous years) are comparative of the 'mainstream' films, with the top performing romance film being  'The Fault in Our Stars' (2014) and 'The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2' (2012). Our film was on the different end of the spectrum in terms of 'mainstream' our film opening is more of a niche film; as such, we will have to really consider how we are going to cater for our target audience.

The fact that the most the '15' classification proved to be most popular with the highest number of releases (304) in 2014 was useful information as it proves to us that by rating our film opening a '15' it would gain some popularity within the generation of 15-24 year olds, who seem to take the most interest in media. We were surprised that the romance genre was almost as unpopular with females as it was with males. this could be due to the state of romance films produced in that year or the fact that this genre caters to a niche market, meaning we, as a group, need to investigate further into how we are going to entice this niche audience into our media product.