Superstar, interesting story and crossing the red line / what the audience wants from the series

In a research by examining the factors affecting the audience of the serials produced by Simafilm, he emphasized the importance of knowing the audience and knowing the needs and interests of the audience. The results of this research show that the presence of popular actors and superstars, attractive and attractive storytelling, and the production of bold works and crossing the red line have the greatest effect on attracting the audience and meeting their needs.

The Allameh Tabatabai University website, by publishing the results of this research, explained it:

Today, the number of viewers for some series produced by Sima Film has reached below 20%, and except for a few cases, the number of viewers for the rest of the series produced is below 50%. While in the last two decades, some TV series were able to get close to 90% of the audience, and this issue has caused serious damage to the Sima Film brand, which was known in the eyes of the audience as a producer of luxurious and high-quality works in recent years.

About three decades ago, television was considered the only channel providing serials in our country, and this caused the serials broadcasted on television at that time to have high numbers of viewers. With the passage of time and the emergence of satellite channels and people's interest in them, the number of viewers of television series began to decrease. This declining trend has accelerated in recent years with the emergence of different platforms and channels for content production and supply in the country.

audience; It is the goal of every media effort, and examining the characteristics of the audience and addressing it is the most important element of making the message effective through television. The diversity and differences of audiences should be identified and included in production planning. If the producers produce content with sufficient audience knowledge, they will succeed in attracting the audience, and otherwise, they will fail to see their work.

Obviously, the lack of congruence between what the media offers as content and what the audience expects to receive, causes the loss of audience trust, and this has consequences such as the audience moving away from the native and approved media.

The increase in content supply channels, lack of time control and independence in choosing, people's non-adherence to viewing habits and previous patterns of content consumption, lack of attention to the changing tastes and tastes of the audience in recent years, the decline in the quality of production content and the lack of interaction with the media are among the reasons for the decrease in the audience of Sima Film Center's productions. This is while the allocation of a budget of several thousand billion tomans to the Sima Film center and the creation of a centralized management of series production for the Islamic Republic of Iran Sima has increased the responsibility of Sima Film to the audience.

Identifying the behavior of the audience and paying attention to their needs and interests as the only way to attract them, is an obligatory and, of course, very complicated thing in the current situation, which seems to be neglected in the film broadcasting center today. For this reason, a research was conducted by the media management students of the Faculty of Communication Sciences of Allameh Tabatabai University with the aim of identifying the behavior of the audience in the productions of Sima Film Center, the results of which are described below.

What was obtained in this research by Ali Saida, a doctoral student in media management at Allameh Tabatabai University, is as follows:

In the research carried out by conducting extensive studies and interviewing 14 experts in the field of serialization and some managers of Sima Film, 25 factors that are effective in audience statistics and the level of audience interest in Sima Film products were identified. Based on the identified factors, a questionnaire was designed and distributed among 30 experts in the field of audience studies, and they were asked to rate each factor based on the impact on the interest of the audience from 4 "very high" to 0 "very little" and based on this, the mentioned factors were scored and ranked.

Questionnaire questions and points given are given in the table below.

According to the table above, the presence of popular actors and the use of superstars, the attractive and attractive story-telling process, and the production and writing of a bold work by crossing the red line have the most impact on attracting the audience and satisfying their needs. Also, the use of the Sima Film brand, the production of works in the genre of holy defense, and the use of environmental advertisements such as posters and billboards have the least effect on increasing the audience. Paying attention to factors with a higher score and not paying to factors with a lower score can be effective in improving and increasing the number of the audience and satisfying their needs and tastes.

1- According to the high score of the factors related to the script, among the measures that can be taken in this direction, is to assign the responsibility of writing the work to the Sima Film Center. Because the separate process of writing, approving and approving it in another center and then referring it to Sima Film for production, prevents the improvement of its quality and the closeness of the script to the audience's desire and interest in "the process of attractive and attractive storytelling, characterization and identification with the characters, as well as writing bold works".

2- Also, strengthening the Telebion platform and facilitating access to content through Telebion can help to increase the number of audiences, considering the changing viewing habits of the audience.

3- By reducing the budget of historical and expensive productions "due to the low score of their related factors" and allocating the resulting resources to the use of popular figures and superstars as well as talented and experienced technical factors "according to the high score of their related factors" in works with smaller production dimensions, an important step can be taken in the direction of reconciling the audience with Sima Film's production series.

It is hoped that the results obtained from this research will be effective in improving the number of viewers of Sima Film series.