When I was working in the TV industry between 1997 and 2003 and my job had nothing to do with Internet Marketing, one of mine biggest problems was identifying clearly what our real target of paying viewers was. Usually we were relying on market research and on audience analysis based on data collected by Nielsen and other sources.

The definition of who were our potential viewers was quite empiric, though, and gut was playing an important role.

In some cases that was enough: for instance it was relatively easy to paint a set of typical users for our Classic Movies Channel (CineClassics). And not that hard was defining the same for the Classic TV Series Channel (Canal Jimmy). But that investigation was harder in the case of our generic Movie Channel (CineCinemas).

Over the base of that studies, a person like me, in charge of planning the channel scheduling and buying the TV rights of movies, documentaries et al, I was able to create the most compelling possible programming (and win few TV awards as well). (more…)