Channel 4: Understanding the TV viewing choices of ethnic minority audiences

British broadcasters have access to a wealth of data on the TV programmes, genres and channels watched by audiences of different demographic profiles via a dedicated research board (BARB).

Despite their unmatched experience in championing diverse voices, Channel 4 looked at the data on the TV viewing behaviours of ethnic minority audiences and could not make sense of what motivated their TV programme selection. Neither could we.

So we undertook research and found that many considerations interact to shape what ethnic minority people decide to watch. We identified seven key factors influencing TV viewing behaviours. With this new framework in mind, BARB data made perfect sense and making programming decisions to earn the choices of ethnic minority audiences became a whole lot easier.

The work was presented to the CEO of Channel 4 and then presented by the Channel 4 Head of News at the Reuters Institute in Oxford, to help more newscasters become aware of TV viewing motivations among ethnic minority audiences.

* Work led at Versiti