My Mad Fat Diary

My Mad Fat Diary is a British television series that first aired on E4 on the 14th of January 2013. The show was based on a book written by Rae Earl (also the name of the protagonist of the show). It is set in Lincolnshire in 1996, and it follows the story of an overweight 16 year old girl who has recently left a psychiatric hospital after spending four months in its grasps.
She begins to re-connect with her best friend and gets introduced to the whole friend group - and these characters stay consistent throughout the whole series.

TARGET AUDIENCE AND SCHEDULING

According to socio-economic grouping, the target audience for My Mad Fat Diary would be mainly C1, C2 and D. The audience that the show was looking to target is one of the older teenage generation. This is because many of the people shown in the program are relatable to the audience - the majority of teenagers have been put into distressing situations such as the ones that Rae finds herself getting involved in. 

The audience would watch this show according to the uses and gratifications for personal identification (the characters relating to themselves), Social interaction (to talk about the show with their friends) and also possibly for diversion (to escape from every day hassles, to focus on someone elses problems instead of their own).

The series was broadcast on Monday nights at 10pm. This is appropriate for the target audience because the scenes and themes contain content that would not be suitable for children or anyone under the age of 16. My Mad Fat Diary pulled in just under 500,000 viewers per week, or a consolidated weekly average of 1.2 millions, when repeats are included.

AUDIENCE APPEALS / RESPONSES 

The main appeal for this show for the audience was that it's very different to other comedy drama programs that we normally find on television. It brings up very sensitive themes and topics that only E4 have really looked into thoroughly before. In many ways My Mad Fat Diary relates to the very popular E4 program 'Skins', as it also focuses on mental illness, dysfunctional families and sexuality.

The audience response was very positive, and with people constantly updating social networking sites talking about the show and their opinion, it's not surprising that viewing figures increased as much as they did. E4 have recently confirmed a second series because of this success.

An audience response to watching the series is the fact that the original book that the show is based on is selling out on sites such as Amazon - showing that they obviously enjoyed the series and want to read more into it.

WEBSITE

The website is extremely interactive and styled in a way to suit the target audience.It is set up in a way that makes us think that it's Rae's desk. It uses references from the program such as paper weights and sketches of her friends on the wall which would lead the audience to believe this. In the centre of the screen you immediately see Rae's diary, which allows us to explore what she actually writes in her diary and to help us reveal her character a bit more than what you see on screen. There is a small hospital band on the left, which links to websites which help with depression and any of the issues brought up in the program (many people watch the program because they can personally identify with the problems that Rae has, and so this deals with the serious side of the show). It allows the audience to catch up on any episodes that they could of missed or simply just interact more with the show. The younger generation are seen as a more active audience who like to keep up with current things particularly on the internet, and so this is a perfect way of letting them become more involved.