Identifying paths to audience success of media products: the media decision-makers’ perspective

Research on media success factors is a fragmented field. Definitions, measures, and methods vary, and findings are often inconsistent. In an attempt to fill this perceived research gap, we distilled generic success factors of media products from the literature. Guided by theory and empirical findings, these factors were aggregated to complex concepts, building blocks of success that we further investigated in an exploratory qualitative study. We found that the building blocks are applicable to all types of media, independent of seriality and content types of media products. Subsequently the research question of this article is: Which building blocks of success are most important for media products? To answer this question, we conducted an online survey of 255 media professionals in print, audio-visual, and online media in Austria, Germany and Switzerland. To analyze our data, we deployed qualitative comparative analysis, a method based on set theory that is suitable to investigate complex causality. We conclude that four building blocks are necessary for success: “good” distribution, environmental orientation, form/design, and human resources are preconditions for achieving success in terms of audience market share. In addition, three patterns emerge in the sufficient paths (combinations of building blocks) to success. Which route to success a media product shows can be related to the width of its topical scope and the corresponding projected audience size.