Who Is the Intended Audience for "Anne with an E" ?

[TheDingo]

I remember way back in 1982 sitting in the theatre after watching Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner" masterpiece and absolutely hating the movie. I hated the movie because it contained about 5 percent of the story and characters from Philip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" novel from 1968, and in my heart of hearts I felt that I had been ripped off because I wanted to see the novel up on the big screen. Over time and after many viewings I grew to love the movie, especially for everything it brought to the screen and for the impact it had on science fiction movies going forward. ( so many movies have stolen pieces from "Blade Runner" since it was released )

Last September (2018) I went to the movies here in Toronto, and on my way to the boxoffice I saw this huge mass of mostly teenage girls in the lobby that were all wearing "Anne" hats and were giggling with excitement. There must have been at least 500 of them, with an age range from eight to fifteen. I spotted one of the group's organizers and asked her what was going on, and she told me that these girls were here to see the first two episodes of season two of "Anne with an E" in a theatre, which would have been about two weeks before the episodes would air on TV. I had no idea that this show was popular with teens, as it seems so tame when compared to the typical teen drama shows it has to compete with. ( if a show doesn't build an audience it gets cancelled and dies )

Looking around the web I've seen many "Anne with an E" forums where girls and young women from different countries ( including a few non-english speaking ones ) profess their love for this show. I don't know if they've read the books, but in their posts they mainly discuss what happened in the show itself, and speculate on what they want to happen in the future. There are almost no posts about how the show doesn't represent the books, or about all of the anachronistic modern elements that should not be there. It's pretty obvious that these young fans love the show as it is, and aren't worried about it not being canon to the original source material.

Taking a look at the "Anne with an E" season three trailer on YouTube I noticed that most of the 1,500+ comments are written by girls and women, and it appears that they too love this show. I'm guessing that there aren't many shows like "Anne with an E" on TV today, so this show is likely a big deal to its main audience, which appears to be a pretty young one.

[Harvey]

I'm on these "young fans" you describe. I have read all of the books. Multiple times. But when discussing the show, I am not going to constantly compare it to the source material, because the fact is, the series took many artistic liberties. The expansion of the world is a real joy to watch, but it also gives less reason to reference the books, since with the many changes it is harder to predict what will actually happen.

[Camera One]

It's tough to know the intended audience since there is limited data from Netflix.   I haven't seen any "Anne with an E" forum.  I think younger viewers tend to talk about shows on other platforms these days, like reddit instead of traditional forums.

I doubt this show would be considered popular among teens, but I can see a subset of tweens (maybe between the ages of 9 and 11) who started to watch this show maybe with their families two years ago, and then now still watching the show into their early teens.  With more romantic entanglements into the third season, I can see this audience staying hooked on the show until the end as they grow up with the cast.

Facebook is more for middle-aged and older folks now, and based on comments there, I think there is also a subset of older CBC viewers in Canada (and older Netflix viewers elsewhere) tuning in.  I think the first season averaged close to a million viewers weekly in Canada, so the typical CBC viewer might be watching.  Not every middle aged or older viewer would be a stickler for adherence to the source material.  Many are likely casual fans of Anne.  Some might have watched other Anne productions in the past and find the show a nice diversion.  I know some older folks who really enjoy the older actors who play Marilla and Matthew and tune in for their performances.

It seems like this forum in particular has some viewers who like to watch the show and yet also do some analysis compared to the source material.  I think the intended audience of the show was meant to expand beyond the base of diehard Anne fans.  The show provides some familiarity to draw in casual Anne fans while providing enough modern ties to entice new or younger viewers.

[Harvey]

37 minutes ago, Camera One said:

I doubt this show would be considered popular among teens, but I can see a subset of tweens (maybe between the ages of 9 and 11) who started to watch this show maybe with their families two years ago, and then now still watching the show into their early teens.  With more romantic entanglements into the third season, I can see this audience staying hooked on the show until the end as they grow up with the cast.

You can tell the show has lots of young viewers because of the incredibly high amount of edits/cracks made about the series and the huge amount of views they pull in.

760 000 views

450 000 views

240 000 views

And there are lots more where that came from.

[Camera One]

1 minute ago, Harvey said:

You can tell the show has lots of young viewers because of the incredibly high amount of edits/cracks made about the series and the huge amount of views they pull in.

That is definitely an indicator.  It looks like the romantic angle is really pulling them in.  I wonder if the young viewers are mostly from North America or international.

[Harvey]

1 minute ago, Camera One said:

That is definitely an indicator.  It looks like the romantic angle is really pulling them in.  I wonder if the young viewers are mostly from North America or international.

It's very international.  (makes sense because the books are well-regarded worldwide)

The actress playing Anne talked about it here at 1:38

[Camera One]

1 minute ago, Harvey said:

It's very international.  (makes sense because the books are well-regarded worldwide)

Plus tweens/teens in North America have a somewhat different culture where this type of show generally wouldn't really be considered "cool".  I wonder if Netflix values the international audience as much as the American one.

[Future Cat Lady]

I think the show’s target audience are tweens and teens. A lot of the issues that they tackle on the show don’t come directly from the books, but are totally relevant to kids today. Anne is really woke for someone from the 19th century. Of course, the show does appeal to a wider audience because AoGG has been popular around the world for over a hundred years.

I feel that they’re doing a teen show, but set in the Anne universe.