The impact of demographic characteristics, media gratification and programmes satisfaction among Chinese audience: A case study of Hangzhou Traffic Radio, China

Abstract

This research aims to investigate the influence of demographic factors, media gratification and programmes satisfaction of Hangzhou Traffic Radio in China. The samples were audiences from the Hangzhou area, aged 18 years and above. Two hundred and three listeners of Hangzhou Traffic Radio in China, were selected to participate in this survey using purposive and convenience sampling method. The means, standard deviation, and percentage were being tabulated and analyzed using One-Way ANOVA and Linear Regression Analysis with the significance level of 0.05. The result revealed that: (1) Among the demographic factors, gender and position do not have a significant effect on audience gratification of Hangzhou Traffic Radio programmes. In contrast, age, occupation and educational level have a significant different media gratification. Respondents aged 45-54 have significant different media gratification from those 28-36 years old and over 55 years old in respect to entertainment. There was a significant difference in media gratification between the freelance group, the retired employees and the government employee groups. Audience with Master’s degree has significant different entertainment from those below Bachelor’s degree. And audience with Higher than Master’s degree has significant different relaxation from those Bachelor’s degree, and Master’s degree. (2) Secondly, researcher found that audiences’ media gratification of entertainment, motivation for life, relaxation, information/knowledge and education significantly increased their perception of satisfaction with programmes if examined together. When examined the factors separately, three factors of entertainment, motivation and education are significant predictors of audiences’ satisfaction with the content of Hangzhou Traffic Radio programmes. However, relaxation and information/knowledge did not significantly influence audience satisfaction.