Broadcast scheduling and its influence on audience behaviour, demonstrated by Family Feud.

Family Feud is an Australian game show broadcast on free-to-air Network Ten at 6pm weeknights and Sunday nights. Teams comprised of families compete in answering questions that have been surveyed by 100 average Australians.

Scheduling is the broadcaster’s decision as to when a TV show will be aired; scheduling certain TV programs at specific times of the day to fit with the patterns of everyday life (Ellis 2000).

Audiences today in the post-broadcast era are more fragmented and dispersed across different televisual platforms (Curtain 2009). Consequently, broadcasters increasingly use scheduling as flow to control audience behaviour and create channel loyalty (Fiske 2011).

Family Feud is scheduled at 6pm weeknights and Sunday nights to coincide with the time that most families have dinner. Being scheduled to follow the news infers the activities of the traditional family, in which the father who has arrived home from work and mother who prepares dinner for the family, can be flowed from watching the news onto Family Feud as the family eats dinner together (Ellis cited in Fiske 2011). The scheduled flow of serious news to light-hearted family fun allows viewers to consider the serious events occurring in the world and then offer them a distraction from what they have witnessed. Following Family Feud is The Project; a program that combines humour and serious editorials to discusses the news of the day, allowing viewers who may have missed the earlier news broadcast to still be informed of the events of the day.

The 6pm time-slot has traditionally been filled by the broadcast news as a scheduling tactic based on traditional gender roles (Ellis cited in Fiske 2011). This is based on the traditional family unit of the working father, stay-at-home mum, and kids, in which the scheduling of the news would coincide with the father’s arrival home from work (Ellis cited in Fiske 2011). The 6-6:30pm time-slot has long been important for broadcasters in flowing viewers into prime-time programs (Fiske 2011). Network Ten’s strategic decision to broadcast an alternative to the news at the 6pm time-slot has been a risk that has ultimately paid off, with its 6-6:30pm ratings being at its highest since 2009 (Manning 2015). By engaging families when they are all together and encouraging viewers to “play along with the family”, it influences audience behaviour to remain loyal and flow onto The Project. The success of Family Feud has achieved higher amounts of viewers flowing onto The Project and subsequent prime-time programs (Manning 2015).

Strategic scheduling of commercial breaks is important for broadcast networks as they largely rely on advertisers for financing (Ellis 2000). Family Feud host Grant Denyer, often poses a survey question to the audience with the answer being revealed immediately following the commercial break. This controls audience behaviour by encouraging viewers to remain loyal so they don’t miss the answer, compelling them to watch the advertisements during the commercial break.

(Family Feud)

By fitting scheduling with the patterns of everyday life, broadcasters can control audience behaviour (Ellis 2000).

Works Cited:

•  Ellis, J 2000, ‘Scheduling: The Last Creative Act in Television?’, Media Culture Society, vol. 22, no. 1, viewed 11 August 2015, Sage Journals Database.
• Fiske, J 2011, Television Culture, 2nd Edition, Routledge, London, UK, viewed 12 August 2015, EBSCOhost database.
• Manning, J 2015, Family Feud Celebrates First Birthday, Mediaweek, viewed 12 August 2015, <http://www.mediaweek.com.au/family-feud-celebrates-first-birthday/&gt;.
• Curtain, M 2009, ‘Matrix Media’, in G Turner & J Tay (eds), Television Studies After TV, Taylor & Francis, London, UK, pp. 9-19, viewed 7 August 2015, EBL: Ebook Library database.