Target audience

Australian broadcaster ABC launched the local version of the car show Top Gear earlier this week. According to The Daily Telegraph “More than 1.3 million people tuned into the debut episode ...” This is the second time I’ve heard that kind of number mentioned in the last day. I can’t remember the exact number cited the other time, except that it was over a million: i.e. the number of users signed up to use the on-line dating service that was advertised on television just after midnight last night. Now, I’m not sure what the exact population of Australia is (quick Google search suggests over 20 million in 2006) but that does seem like an awful lot of people to be looking for love on-line. I wonder if there have been any statistics produced about success rates? Or, and this is probably recent viewing of an “X Files episode where the suspect was using on-line dating sites to target women so he could feast on their lipids rather than their lips” talking, has anyone produced reliable statistics about why it may not be such a good idea to use the internet for initiating on-line relationships – or a “how to” guide so people can do so safely? (Yes, I know ... time to turn off the television.) Is this something that could be included in the next Census – or the subject of someone’s doctoral thesis – although collecting data might be tough because of the sheer size of the population (random sampling might help) and because if someone had had a not-so-wonderful experience with on-line dating, they may not want to talk about it. Lots of food for thought there ... including whether there is a specific personality profile that would prefer on-line dating, and whether modern lifestyles means there is a preference for on-line dating over other ways of meeting people. (This ramble is probably another reason to turn off the television – especially when midnight rolls around. Seems to be a different target market in the wee smalls of the morning.)