Target Audience Work - Who Watches 'Breaking Bad?'

Who watches ‘Breaking Bad?'

Joe Danter

As Breaking Bad has become such a widely successful programme it is difficult to specify the target audience, many different types of people may watch it for different reasons.

Applying Young & Rubicam’s ‘Cross Cultural Consumer Characterisation’ to Breaking Bad.

• Mainstreamers – Mainstreamers would watch Breaking Bad as it is immensely popular and they are more likely to respond to big brands, although BB is not a family programme the older members of the household would be likely to watch it.
• Aspirers – As aspirers are driven by their own appearance and other’s perception of their appearance they would be likely to watch BB purely for bragging rights and being able to involve themselves in popular conversations, increasing their social status.
• Succeeders – Succeeders seek quality, BB has had an incredible response from critics and has some of the highest reviews seen in television programmes, therefore a succeeder would be likely to watch it as they would be interested in watching programmes with the best reviews to maximise the quality they could get from their television subscriptions.
• Resigned – Many people in this part of society probably would not indulge in BB as they are highly conservative and old fashioned and BB presents very modern issues that resigned individuals may not be interested in and may not believe the content of BB is appropriate for its audience.
• Reformers - As reformers seek enlightenment and will watch a programme purely to grow their knowledge members of this section of society may watch BB, not because of it’s huge popularity but because of it’s insight in to the world of crime and drug manufacturing.
• Explorers – Explorers would probably watch BB to discover it’s narrative and how it became a worldwide success, however explorers seek instant satisfaction and as BB is a series that is initially slow to kick off and requires a level of patience many explorers may become bored and move on to a different series before they give the BB storyline time to unravel and develop.
• Strugglers – The average struggler is the most likely member of society to sit and binge watch an entire series of BB in one sitting, they are heavy indulgers of products and would rather waste entire days watching television than prioritising their time and watching BB in organised time slots.

Profile of the average Breaking Bad viewer.

You can not determine a viewer of Breaking Bad simply by looking at their Demographic (factual and statistical) information as this is not a factor in personal taste and interests. For example just because Walter White/Heisenberg - the central character in the programme - is a 50 year-old Caucasian male from Albuquerque, the audience do not have to fit this description. Viewers could be any age, gender, race, etc. Psychographic information is much more useful in determining a Breaking Bad viewer, as Psychographic information consists of an individual's lifestyle, interests, opinions and values and studying this information can reveal their personality and motives towards consuming media products.

The following factors are what i would consider to be common among BB viewers and therefore the traits of the average viewer:

1. Open minded, curious to see the 'war on drugs' from the point of view of the people making a profit from the industry. (Reformers)
2. Sympathetic, able to see how life-ruining the drugs themselves can be but also how being involved in such a brutal, ungovernable business can have a huge effect on your family life. (Mainstreamers)
3. Somewhere between sociable and unsociable, they may be hearing praise of the series from friends and wanting to keep up with the trend and therefore watch it themselves. Or conversely, the viewer could be a 'binge watcher' and stay in and watch a series at a time. I would argue that most viewers are slightly more sociable than unsociable but also have elements of 'binge watching' in their lifestyle. (Aspirers and Strugglers)
4. Modern, many conservative/old fashioned consumers may not be able to cope with the 21st century issues portrayed in the program or the way that 'Heisenberg' - the developing drug lord - is shown as incredibly cunning and courageous at times albeit egotistical and border-line psychopathic throughout the program. Hence, the average viewer would require a more modern outlook towards the themes in the program.
5. Seeking quality, BB has been showered with awards and astounding reviews, many viewers will have found the program when looking for a worthwhile TV series to indulge in and be motivated by the critic's positive feedback. (Succeeders and Explorers)

As you can see, the average viewer is made up of many attributes from different parts of the 'Young & Rubicam's 4 C's', looking at all the categories I would assume viewers to be mostly Succeeders or Aspirers with elements of Reformer attitudes as Breaking Bad is both a quality and trend-setting program with deep thought-provoking aspects.