Audience

• A media audience may be as small as one person reading a magazine or as large as billions of people around the world watching events, like 9/11, unfold live on television.• Audiences have a complex relationship with the products they consume. 

• Media producers intend audiences to read their product in a certain way, but in actual fact everyone 'reads' and enjoys a product differently due to the individual's background and lifestyle.

• Media audiences may be consuming different types of media at any one time (such as listening to an iPod, watching TV, chatting on the Internet) and be engaging at different levels – for example, the television may be turned on whilst a family has dinner.

• Media consumers are organised into identified groups (based on such things as lifestyle or earning power) by producers, broadcasters, and advertisers who can then target consumers.

• Most media products are produced for profit – so producers and advertisers are more likely to target those groups with spending power, such as urban professionals between the ages of 25–54.