Conceptualizations of the audience in political talk show production

Introduction

When studying television production in the field researchers often come across notions of ‘the viewers’ formulated by media managers and producers during the different stages of the production process. Conceptualizations of the audience seem to be embedded in the strategic and in the creative work done in television, and the audience is, so to speak, ‘in production’. Two recent developments can be presumed to influence this medium–viewer relationship. First, with the integration of television and interactive media like mobile phones and social media like Facebook the audience has in different ways become a part of the production process, thereby blurring the boundaries between the functions of producer and audience in mass communication. Second, over the last decade, the competition for the attention of the audience has intensified dramatically in many of the European television markets. In the very small Danish television market, with a population of 5.5 million, the two public service providers, DR and TV 2, and the major commercial players, MTG/TV3 and SBS, have all launched channels with special target groups in mind as well as Internet- and mobile phone-based services catering to special commercially and/or politically attractive target groups. Thus, in these media organizations to manage the medium–viewer relationship now includes individual programmes and channels as well as a large and dynamic portfolio of channels and platforms.

The combination of multichannel organizations and the integration of interactive media into the products have created a production environment that may entail reinterpretation or new conceptualizations of the audience held by the professionals, which may become embedded in the production practices. I suggest that an audience-as-social-segments model seems to be an institutionally effective conceptualization of the audience at work in the production of political talk shows in Danish PSM (public service media). This conceptualization represents a change compared to the use of the political talk show in the early period of television competition in Denmark from 1988 to the late 1990s. First, the article outlines the changes to the political talk show genre in Danish PSM since then. An analysis of the staging of the implied receiver in a cross-platform political talk show Debatten [The Debate] is presented as an example of how the conceptualization of the audience-in-production has changed. The show is broadcast by DR’s supplement channel DR2. Second, the article argues for the audience-as-social-segments model as a managerial tool in the production culture of political talk shows in PSM. This is based on research identifying four different sources of knowledge about the audience that are influencing the conceptualizations of the audience in the production of content in the television industry. As a managerial tool the audience-as-social-segments model seems to have two implications for the production of political talk shows. First, it radicalizes a notion of the audience as target groups and lifestyle segments in a manner that seems to bring about changes to the relationship between the managerial level and the creative producers of content in PSM. Second, the model entails a nexus between genre, subject areas and target groups, and it probably coexists with other audience-in-production models at work in the PSM organization. All in all, the audience-as-social-segments model represents an innovative potential for the production of political talk shows as well as a future challenge to the traditional role of PSM organizations as universal service providers.

Producing for whom? The changing production culture of political talk shows

During the early period of television competition in Denmark from 1988 to the late 1990s, the talk show genre was used with the intention of engaging an audience that had been somewhat neglected by the kind of political journalism produced during the monopoly era (Bruun, 1999; Hjarvard, 1999, 2008). Communicating with the mainstream audience in mind and aiming for a large audience was in many ways a new challenge for the television journalists. In particular, the second PSM organization, TV 2, produced a kind of political talk show that attracted an audience of scale that DR failed to reach. An example is the series Højlunds Forsamlingshus [Højlund’s Village Hall] scheduled once a week from 1988 to 1992 in prime time and with ratings of 18%. TV 2 was skilful at reaching not only a large audience for political talk shows but also an audience with relatively low levels of formal education and viewers living outside the larger cities in Denmark. In other words: the majority of Danes. Furthermore, lifestyle analysis showed that the ‘psychographic’ of the audience of the shows had a bias towards the traditional lifestyle segments (Bruun, 2000).

The talk show is still in use as a setting for political journalism in Danish PSM, and over the past decade series have evolved into two different branches. First, the political talk show is used for meta-politics series. In these programmes party politics in the Danish national parliament are analysed and interpreted by the host(s), assisted by professional political commentators. These are chosen from among ex-spin doctors or journalists from various areas of the news and opinion industry. The main theme in this branch of programmes is politics framed as power plays among political agents. These dramas involve tactics and strategies that can be deduced from what is said and done about the issues and how the media are used to promote or frame certain issues. This branch of political talk shows is part of a general trend in political journalism that focuses on the backstage of the political performance in the media (Binderkrantz and Green-Pedersen, 2009). This way of framing politics as processes rather than issues is described by, for example, Corner (2003) and Hjarvard (2013: 74) in their analyses of the changing relationship between the public sphere of the media, the political institution and the private life of the politicians. The second branch that has developed since the late 1990s is the talk show setting used for the debate on political issues. These are series in which the host(s) brings up current political issues for debate among opposing participants. Conflict, confrontation and provocation are important qualities of these kinds of talk shows. The developments within this branch of political talk shows are the focus of this article.

During the early years of television competition in Denmark this kind of political journalism on television was very much inspired by the wave of audience discussion programmes (ADP) in the USA and the UK (Bruun, 1999; Livingstone and Lunt, 1994; Munson, 1993; Shattuc, 1997). In these talk shows ordinary people were used as debaters instead of experts, politicians or members of the opinion industry. However, in Danish PSM this talk show format was not only used to give voice to the political dimensions of private problems and issues among ordinary people, but also to debate current political issues. The programmes confronted politicians and those in power with the ordinary Danes in the guise of a studio audience. The aforementioned series Højlunds Forsamlingshus was spearheading this development and TV 2 as well as DR produced a lot of series following this dramaturgical setup during the 1990s (Bruun, 2000).

Hjarvard (2008) describes the communicative ethos of this kind of political journalism on television and in news journalism in general as populism caused by the media competition and the need for large audiences (2008: 108–113). The research literature largely supports this diagnosis (e.g. Anderson and Ward, 2007; Thussu, 2007; Turner, 2005). However, since the mushrooming of supplement and niche channels in Danish PSM the use of the political talk show has undergone profound changes and can no longer be seen as the vehicle for gaining large audiences to political journalism on television. The audience-in-production model has so to speak changed. First, the series are no longer scheduled on the mainstream channels in prime time, but primarily on the supplement and niche channels and 24/7 news channels in the growing channel portfolios of the PSM organizations. Even if the target groups of many of these new channels are not officially argued to be the better off and well-educated segments of the Danish population, this is in fact the kind of audience attracted to these channels because of the profile of highbrow genres and subject areas offered. This is certainly the case for two of DR’s six channels: DR2 and DRK, as well as for TV 2’s 24/7 news channel, TV 2 News. These three channels have audience shares of between 1.4% and 4% (DR-Medieudviklingen, 2012: 9). In other words, the audience shares are small but presumably of political importance to the legitimacy of PSM and of economic importance especially to the second PSM organization, TV 2, funded by commercials and subscriptions. Furthermore, the supplement and niche channels play a very important role in the fight for an acceptable market share of PSM (DR-Medieudviklingen, 2011, 2012).

An example of this new way of using the political talk show at DR is the series Debatten [The Debate]. The series is produced by DR2, which was launched in 1996 as a supplement channel to DR1. Back then the publicly argued aim of this new channel was to better serve the different segments of Danish viewers by expanding prime time. For the last five years DR2 has had a market share of 4% in a period in which it has been increasingly difficult for the mainstream channel DR1 to obtain high ratings and, as a consequence, to keep up its share of viewing (Degn, 2010; DR-Medieudviklingen, 2011). DR2 has a profile of mixed programming consisting of art house films, cultural and current affairs programmes, documentaries, ‘quality’ television series and satire. In the public debate on television and media in Denmark DR2 is often regarded as the sole carrier of the ideals of public service. But the channel has also been given the nickname ‘the egghead channel’, and in brand surveys the DR2 brand is well known and associated with aesthetic experiments, new talents and, above all, seriousness.

Debatten, a ‘debate on political issues’-type of talk show, has existed since 1999; its average viewing share is 6% and its ratings are 122,000. The average viewer is well-educated and middle-aged, and the series appeals to the modern and community-oriented lifestyle segments of the Danish population (Gallup TV-Meter analysis 2011 to May 2013 by the author) ¹ . In 2010 and 2011 the series was given a comprehensive ‘makeover’ to support a participatory orientation (Westlund, 2012). The series can be characterized as a cross-platform format or phenomenon, as Lotz calls these new kinds of television productions (Lotz, 2009). It consists of a live broadcast once a week in prime time supported by a Facebook profile with 31,171 friends (20 October 2013) and a website at www.dr.dk. There is a division of labour between the three dimensions of the series. The weekly highlight is the live show every Thursday at 8 p.m., and this event is supported by the Facebook profile before, during and after the show. The dr.dk site is mainly used as a programme archive and for different services like booking the studio audience and information on the history, host and producers of the show. The main characteristic of the communicative ethos of the cross-platform format seems to be confrontations among peers instead of a conflict structure confronting those in political power and those who are the object of this power. This communicative ethos is produced by the egalitarian values that permeate Debatten and leads to a dismantling of distinctions of power. The debaters confronted in the live show are a mix of politicians, professional experts and leading representatives of important business associations, lobbies and organizations. All in all, a cast of debaters recruited from the top of the hierarchy of power in society meet each other in the series. The show is, however, risky for these professional debaters, because it puts a great deal of emphasis on the uncertainty dimension in the dramaturgical staging of the talk show (Bruun, 2001). First, the atmosphere of uncertainty is produced by the rigorous three to five act structure of the show managed by the host. This structure means that two to four debaters at a time enter the centre stage from their seats among the studio audience. The structure puts pressure on the debaters, because they do not know when they will be called or dismissed, and it gives the show a dynamic and an ambience of high tempo and unpredictability. Second, the choice of host creates an atmosphere of uncertainty. The male host is a high-profile television personality famous for his opinionated and controversial interview style and political interests. The interview style is characterized by a teasing attitude towards the professional debaters with the purpose of degrading their status. Third, and very importantly, the visual narration of the show is characterized by an emphasis on the human reactions to uncertainty. The show is dominated by close-ups of the faces of the debaters, the host and the studio audience that reveal emotional reactions during the heated confrontations.

The management of the Facebook profile supports this ethos of confrontation among peers. The political issue up for discussion as well as the performances in the show are discussed on Facebook during the 60-minute show and moderated by two specially invited guest hosts. These hosts initiate the debate and are recruited among well-known bloggers and political commentators from the news and opinion industry. The viewer-users are invited to participate in the debate on a par with these celebrities. Furthermore, the Facebook profile is used for pitching possible issues for future shows, and suggestions for issues are called for among the ‘friends’, inviting them to decide which issues should be discussed in the coming shows. The Facebook profile generates between 200 and 350 comments during the live show and around 50–100 comments before and after the live show. These figures mean that Debatten is in fact very successful at turning viewers into viewer-users compared to other talk shows also inviting viewers to participate by offering their opinion from time to time using Facebook or dr.dk.

All in all, Debatten offers mediated social interaction as well as para-social interaction for the viewer-users of the series; all of which supports the communicative ethos of confrontation among peers. Compared to the political talk shows produced in the period from 1988 to the late 1990s, the staging of the implied receiver has changed; the implied receiver is no longer staged in opposition to the representatives of power, but as powerful participants. In the following section of this article these changes to the staging of the implied receiver and the scheduling of political debate talk shows are linked to the conceptualization of the audience-in-production for this genre formulated at the managerial level of DR. First, the theoretical framework for this analysis will be elaborated. It builds on research into the different sources of knowledge produced by the television industry in order to reduce the risk of television production. Second, using this framework I will suggest that an audience-as-social-segments model seems to be an institutionally effective conceptualization of the audience that is emerging. This model is developed in order to bridge the forces of market competition, digitalization and the cultural-political obligations of the PSM.

Knowledge of the audience in television production

Constructions of the audience in professional media production processes are based on different sources, which provide formal as well as informal knowledge of the audience. As Ang (1991: 19) points out, these sources of knowledge about the audience are used within the media organizations to reduce the risk inherent in producing mass communication like television. To ‘make an audience’ is the fundamental task in television production, because without an audience the economic viability and cultural legitimacy of television disappear. Nevertheless, the audience is ‘the ultimate insecurity factor because in principle there is no way to know in advance whether the audience will tune in and stay tuned’ (Ang, 1991: 18). Thus, the terror of the absent audience is a feeling shared among television producers and managers, as Gitlin (1985) has shown in his seminal work on prime time television production in the USA.

As argued by Ettema and Whitney (1994), ‘the audience’ is, then, a construction constituted by a range of complex organizational processes of what is regarded as ‘institutionally effective audiences that have social meaning and/or economic value within the system’ (1994: 5). These effective audiences include what Ettema and Whitney term the measured audience. At present, this kind of institutional knowledge is constructed by the statistical data generated by devices like Gallup TV Meter, Gallup Radio Meter, Gemius and ad hoc data mining. As Buzzard (2012) has pointed out, the many new ways of accessing television content and avoiding commercials represent a challenge to the construction of this kind of audience and the business model it supports. She describes the efforts in the USA to generate ‘clickstream data’ of audience behaviour across different platforms as an accepted currency of this model (Buzzard, 2012: 129).

The notion of the effective audience also includes what Ettema and Whitney call specialized and segmented audiences. This kind of knowledge consists of, for example, target group information from lifestyle typologies, based on cluster analysis of values, and research into patterns of consumer choices and media use. It also consists of data from qualitative methods like focus group pre-tests or post-broadcast evaluations of programmes, and sometimes it even involves individual interviews as a tool for gaining information. Finally, the notion of effective audiences includes what is termed hypothesized audiences, which covers the presumed interests and needs of the audience protected by national and international regulations of television, for example protection of children and minorities and/or the cultural-political obligations of PSM.

In addition to these different kinds of formal sources of knowledge produced in order to generate an audience, the professional knowledge of the audience held by producers of different subject areas and genres within the television industry is very important. This kind of knowledge circulates in certain discursive practices, for example in pitching ideas for future programmes, in dramaturgical decisions and rearrangements, in informal conversations and at editorial as well as board meetings. Espinosa (1982) calls this kind of knowledge of the audience the ‘cultural category’, which the producers form from a number of different sources, including ‘their experiences with audiences from previous programs, their personal projections about who their audience is, and their knowledge of the industry they work in’ (Espinosa, 1982: 85). The audience is, in this sense, embedded in the television text, because the whole production process behind the final product is informed by this kind of knowledge.

The importance of the audience conceptualized as a cultural category in media production is supported by the results from DeWerth-Pallmeyer’s (1997) work on news production. The findings show that the audience as a cultural category is deeply embedded in the professional knowledge of the producers of newspapers and television news in the USA. DeWerth-Pallmeyer draws on Donald Schön’s concept of knowledge-in-action and on the concept of the tacit dimension of knowledge defined by Polanyi (1967). This means that the notion of the audience is not easily expressed in words, but nevertheless permeates the production process and the final product:

Although journalists work with no formalized audience image, a tacit image of the audience does develop out of the journalists’ work with the product. … These implicit notions of the audience have an impact on the news that is produced. (DeWerth-Pallmeyer, 1997: 16)

Because ‘the audience’ as a cultural category is part of the tacit dimension of knowledge and knowledge-in-action among professional media producers, DeWerth-Pallmeyer argues for a focus on what he terms the ‘product image’ (1997: 20). A ‘product image’ is the understanding of the specific production, for example a specific news programme made for a specific channel within a specific media systemic context. It entails a normative assessment of what is considered good and bad news journalism, the job goal of the journalist, which news values to follow and what technologies to use, etc. According to DeWerth-Pallmeyer, journalists find it easier to talk about the channel identity and the products, than the intended audience. Nevertheless, it is possible to deduce a notion of the audience-in-production from this ‘product image’ discourse.

A very influential source of information about this cultural audience is what DeWerth-Pallmeyer terms ‘content-mediated information’ (1997: 85). This consists of direct contact with individual members of the public and feedback from the real receivers of the news, for example through phone calls or letters to the editor. These different notions of the audience as a cultural category in the production of news are characterized as ‘working theories of the audience’ (DeWerth-Pallmeyer, 1997: 12), which together constitute a kind of communication theory very close to the practice of this specific genre. The sources of knowledge provided by organizational research, ‘the research-mediated information’, as DeWerth-Pallmeyer (1997: 85) terms it, are of less value to the producers of news. In fact, the validity of statistical information is often questioned and seen as commercial interference with the product image and, as a consequence, at odds with what is seen as the real needs of the public.

The different kinds of knowledge might not be equally distributed or acknowledged between the vocational levels within the media organization, but they nevertheless influence the programmes produced for the viewers. Furthermore, the results give rise to questions about how these different kinds of knowledge are assessed and used in a wide range of genres and subject areas and in different organizational and media systemic contexts. Finally, following the professional rationality presented in DeWerth-Pallmeyer’s findings, the notion of the audience embedded in the product image might also be very much influenced by the contributions made by the users of cross-platform formats, with synchronous interaction as part of the product. This kind of knowledge now available is still rather new to most television producers outside of entertainment genres like reality game shows and live event shows. However, it represents a shortcut between production and evaluation by the real viewer-users; evaluation is ‘in production’. Furthermore, synchronous feedback by the viewer-users could be used in the risk-reducing efforts involved in television production.

To sum up, these multiple sources of knowledge about the audience can give rise to the different audience-in-production models at work in multichannel and multiplatform television production, explicitly or tacitly generating institutionally effective audiences. For example, specific target groups among the potential audience might be of greater value than others for economic and/or political reasons; the production of certain genres associated with specific organizational needs may give priority to one audience-in-production model over others, etc.

Institutionally effective audiences: The managerial perspective

As mentioned, the efforts to develop Debatten into a participation-oriented and entertaining cross-platform format take place on a supplement channel with a market share of around 4%. At the same time, the talk show as a setting for political debate has disappeared from the mainstream channel DR1. Head of DR2 from 2011 to 2012 and presently head of DRK, Flemming Hedegaard, explains the reason for this choice of strategy:

Political talk shows have had an increasingly hard time on the mainstream channels like DR1 and TV 2, partly because these programmes demand a certain amount of interest in the issues up for debate, and partly because the political talk show is a specific kind of journalism, which is not interesting to a lot of viewers. To be honest, these programmes often end up where they begin. The mainstream channels have reached the conclusion that this is not the way to produce television with a general appeal. But political debate is still very important in a public service perspective. DR2 is the perfect platform for this kind of journalism. We have the time for immersion and the aim of challenging the values and opinions of the viewers. DR2’s mission is to innovate, groom talent and to produce surprising television in journalism, satire, culture and lifestyle programming. We do not need to produce high ratings, but we do need to deliver what is expected. (Hedegaard, in-person interview, 27 April 2012)

The commissioning editor of current affairs and documentaries at DR2, Bo Zuschlag, strongly supports this product image of DR2 and the position of Debatten as a flagship of the DR2 product image in the DR channel portfolio (telephone interview, 1 June 2012).

In line with Ettema and Whitney’s (1994) outline of the sources of knowledge involved in defining the institutionally effective audience, the knowledge provided by the ‘measured audience’ of the different channels in the channel portfolio of DR plays a major role in this managerial perspective. But the ‘hypothesized audience’ is equally important. Even if political talk shows are perceived to have serious dramaturgical problems and little to offer the general audience, the political talk show is given high priority at DR. The cultural-political content obligations of PSM organizations in Denmark lead to a combination of these two sources of knowledge and, most importantly, to using the ‘segmented audience’ as a source of knowledge important to PSM. Hedegaard puts it in this way:

The position of DR2 in the Danish television market is among the modern lifestyle segments [e.g. in the lifestyle segmentation analysis provided by the Gallup Compas tool]. We are experiencing an intensified competition in the market for this particular segment, no doubt! (Hedegaard, in-person interview, 27 April 2012)

However, keeping a clear product image of DR2 in the portfolio of channels offered by DR is seen as increasingly difficult in the present television market. Former head of DR2, Arne Notkin, presently cultural editor at TV 2 News, initiated the revitalization of political journalism in general at DR2 from 2007 to 2011. He argues that the changes made to the staging of the implied receiver in Debatten are part of this effort to revitalize the political talk show in the competition for this specific segment of the audience. The communicative ethos of the shows from 1988 to the late 1990s often produced a situation where the ordinary people ‘fell short’ in the confrontations with the trained professional debaters. Notkin does not regard this dramaturgical positioning of the implied receiver as attractive to the ‘segmented audience’ of DR2 (telephone interview, 12 August 2012).

Former head of DR1, the mainstream channel of DR, and presently head of TV 2 Denmark, Lotte Lindegaard, supports the combination of the different sources of knowledge provided by organizational research at DR in her view on the institutionally effective audiences of DR. However, this is not seen as nearly enough to do television (in-person interview, 27 April 2012). The interviewees all stress the importance of professional knowledge and creativity. As Hedegaard puts it, ‘Producing good television is a mix of knowledge and gut feeling. It can never be turned into an Excel spread sheet. The viewers often surprise us, even if we have pre-tests and data telling us otherwise’ (Hedegaard, in-person interview, 27 April 2012). The lesson learned from 25 years of input on the measured audience and the segmented audience as tools for fulfilling the obligations of PSM is that the tools are useful primarily for the management. They are invaluable tools when it comes to scheduling and developing strategies in the television market, but they are not very creative tools. In other words, the audience as a ‘cultural category’ is not replaced as a source of knowledge.

Based on this evaluation a division of labour emerges within the integrated production and broadcasting organization DR. Seen from the managerial point of view, the notion of the audience as a cultural category is the source of knowledge that is most important to the producers of the specific programmes. The sources of knowledge based on research are no longer regarded as productive for the creative development and implementation of the content at the level of specific programmes in the multichannel production environment. As the heads of DR1 and DR2 both agree, this was different in the early days of competition at DR, when these sources of knowledge about the audience were used to educate and discipline the creative producers and journalists of the individual programmes to become more aware of the audience. Furthermore, at the managerial level the audience as a cultural category is already framed by the knowledge of the segmented audience of DR2 as a channel with a specific role to play in the portfolio. The rule of thumb is that DR2 has the benefits of a politically interested and engaged target group and the possibility of building an audience with a fan-like relationship to a product like Debatten. This is the main difference between the conceptualization of the audiences of DR2 and DR1, when it comes to political talk shows. This kind of programming is no longer seen as suitable for DR1, because it will not help to fulfil the obligation to attract a mainstream audience of scale. Consequently, at DR1 the talk show genre is used for celebrity entertainment and human interest journalism, emphasizing the para-social relationship with television personalities. The political talk show will only be produced for a mainstream audience for ad hoc purposes following specific events like a general election or a political crisis.

Based on these findings at the upper managerial level of the production culture in the PSM organization DR, it is clear that an explicit and radical segmentation is at work in the construction of the effective audience. Perceiving the audience in terms of target groups with different psychographic profiles, needs and interests has become taken-for-granted professional knowledge. Furthermore, these lifestyle-defined target groups are not just embedded in specific dramaturgical and communicative approaches to the talk show genre, but also at the level of channels and schedules in the portfolio. The audience is in-the-text, as Espinosa (1982) would argue, including websites and social media. Seen from this managerial perspective on multichannel and multiplatform PSM, the producers and hosts of the content are like ‘cast creative actors’ that fit the different channels in the portfolio with the kind of programmes they are good at doing. In other words, the audience segments they are supposed to deliver for the product image of the channel measure the value of their creativity and professional skills. Furthermore, at the managerial level of the production culture the underlying logic used to make sense of the product images of DR2 and DR1 seems to be a nexus between genres, subject areas and target groups. This means that certain genres and/or subject areas are suitable for different segments of the audience, and others are not.

The findings suggest that the audience-in-production model embedded in the product image of DR2 and the overall use of the talk show as a setting for political debate in the portfolio of channels is first and foremost a socially segmented one. By this I mean a model that makes sense of the audience as composed of sociodemographic, psychographic, constructed target groups of different scales. The dynamic and relatively unpredictable needs and preferences of these groups represent the challenge professional television production has to meet. The main question guiding further research in this case study is whether this conceptualization of the audience is part of the product image of Debatten among the journalists and producers of the series and plays a role in the actual production process. For example, do professional notions of journalism and the genre status of current affairs play a role in the construction of the audience produced by these professionals? Furthermore, is the construction of the audience-in-production influenced by the synchronously and asynchronously mediated interaction with the ‘real’ viewers/users via the Facebook profile? And finally, does this interaction affect the product image and the overall production culture?

The existence of changing and perhaps even conflicting audience-in-production models within the production culture of a genre in a media organization can be supported by results from a study of the changing production culture of television satire in Danish PSM (Bruun, 2011, 2012). The study shows that different conceptualizations of the audience, or audience-in-production models, mark the history and aesthetic use and developments of this particular entertainment genre. Specific, but very different audience-in-production models were at work in the production culture in the period from 1968 to 1999 and in the period from 1999 to 2010. An audience-as-citizens or -public model (Ang, 1991; Webster and Phalen, 1994) might be an appropriate conceptualization of the audience-in-production model of satire from 1968 to 1999. In the following period this audience-in-production model gradually changed. The genre was moved to DR2, and from 2003 the managerial level of DR2 cast comedians producing satirical entertainment to fit the product image or brand of DR2 supported by an elaborate satire website on dr.dk (Bruun, 2011: 170–176). The series produced attracted a small audience – rating between 1 and 4% – of young adults as well as the modern lifestyle segments of the audience. Nevertheless, the series were part of a wave of innovative satirical entertainment produced for DR2. All in all, the audience-in-production was not the audience at large, but a socially segmented audience already known to be interested in this specific kind of edgy entertainment. High ratings or shares were no longer as important for the definition of the institutionally effective audience as the ‘hypothesized audience’ (Ettema and Whitney, 1994), and in the same period satire disappeared from the entertainment produced for DR1.

The coexistence of different or even conflicting models within the PSM organization is not just a result of the post-monopoly era. During the monopoly era and prior to digital media of any kind it could be argued that there were profound clashes between what could be seen as an audience-as-consumers model held by the producers of entertainment and talk shows and an audience-as-public/-citizens notion held by the producers of news and current affairs programmes (Bruun, 2005). Furthermore, depending on the media organization in question and intertwined with the genre or subject area produced (e.g. news, drama, entertainment), there seems to be a normative hierarchy between the audience-in-production models. Syvertsen (2004) criticizes the more or less implied normative agendas of media research trying to map the development of the media–viewer relationship in PSM. According to Syvertsen’s analysis, the first item on this normative agenda is that media organizations, genres and programmes that can be said to conceptualize the audience following audience-as-citizens or -public models are ‘better’ than organizations, genres and programmes that conceptualize the audience following audience-as-market or -coin-of-exchange or -consumers models. These normative framings are probably also part of the professional media managers’ and producers’ constructions and should therefore be addressed in an empirical study of how these audience-in-production models work in the specific processes of different production cultures, because they are most likely part of the ‘product image’ held by the producers. To understand how audience-in-production models are constructed and work, a production analysis of specific professional production cultures and the products they produce seems to be an appropriate methodological approach. This approach might also help us to understand how changes happen to, for example, a product image caused by the interplay between forces from inside a media organization and outside forces like new technologies and political-economic changes in the media systemic context.

Conclusion: A pool of models and the future of PSM

As pointed out by Ettema and Whitney (1994), all the sources of knowledge about the audience used in the television industry are employed to produce ‘institutionally effective audiences’. This is done in organizational contexts within specific media systemic contexts and in concrete historical and cultural contexts. However, based on the findings reported from the case study of political talk shows and supported by the study of television satire and television entertainment, different models of the audience may govern the production culture of specific genres. In consequence, I would like to suggest that a multitude of audience-in-production models might be at work simultaneously in media production processes and practices in multichannel and multiplatform PSM organizations today. First, my suggestion is to understand the different audience-in-production models as a pool of coexisting models and not necessarily as a frame for the description of a past-to-present development. Second, the managers and producers of content can reinterpret these coexisting models and new models can be added under the influence of specific organizational, technological and media systemic circumstances. Finally, new models do not necessarily replace the older ones. Syvertsen (2004) suggests a typology of four ideal types, which are probably already ‘swimming’ in the pool: the viewers as citizens, as audiences, as customers and as players (2004: 364). These ideal types can be used to discuss what kinds of roles are actually provided by the media organizations for the viewers to act out, and they may be supported or constrained by media systemic contexts, economics and technological changes. In the fourth and latest conceptualization, viewers serve as participants in forms of activity offered by the media organizations, ranging from phone-ins, online participation in, for example, current affairs programmes and talk shows and user-generated content to SMS voting in reality game shows. Currently, the audience-as-players model is very much in focus in PSM. Syvertsen very briefly discusses the implementation of this emerging model. Specific sociodemographic target groups might be serve as players depending on their importance to the PSM organization, while others might not. In line with Ettema and Whitney (1994), it can be added that the future challenge to PSM is whether the audience-as-players model generates institutionally effective audiences.

In conclusion, I suggest that an audience-as-social-segments model should be added to the pool of audience-in-production models in order to understand the conceptualization of the audience for political talk shows governing the managerial level at DR. This proposed audience-in-production model takes as its point of departure the cultural and political obligations that the PSM organization tries to fulfil in a multiplatform and multichannel environment. To manage the media–viewer relationship in a dynamic and highly competitive environment the audience-as-social-segments model demands and legitimizes a much more desktop-controlled usage of the different television channels in the portfolio. As the findings from this study of the changing conceptualizations of the audience of political talk shows indicate, the audience-as-social-segments model seems to be capable of producing innovative experiments in television journalism. It can undoubtedly result in forms of communication with enhanced relevance and usability for specific segments of viewers and users. However, the increasingly desktop-controlled process of content production and the nexus between genre, subject area and target group in this audience-in-production model might also be a challenge for multichannel and multiplatform PSM. The audience-as-social-segments model might have problems providing relevant public service for segments of the audience that the cast creative producers of content and the journalists do not identify with or match in terms of sociodemographic and psychographic profile. In this sense, the communicative ethos of multichannel, multiplatform PSM could paradoxically be taking on a 2.0 version of paternalism; its strength is attracting the well-educated and well-off segments of the viewers and users, but catering to the mainstream audience becomes a problem. The declining audience shares of the mainstream or mother channels of the PSM organizations in many European countries are perhaps the first sign of this creative challenge facing PSM organizations producing journalism, entertainment and fiction in the future.