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Demographic information includes geographic area, age, income, race, gender and education level. It also includes shopping habits, marital status, number of children and other information about consumer characteristics.

Whether the demographics describe national or local markets or small groups such as those within an age range, the information helps you avoid the hit-and-miss marketing method.

For us, social media is an editorial tool. It is a great source of tip-offs.

We haven’t segregated social media by having a person/team dedicated to it as, for example, The Sun does, because the most important thing is that everybody realises that every single person in our newsroom has to be social media savvy

You don’t necessarily want to put everybody’s opinion on air, but you can see trends and it helps with your impartiality and openness.

Social media is at the heart of everything MTV does. We now test talent and programming on social media audiences before we make commissioning decisions. We see it as a form of marketing, providing social currency for our brands.

James Kirkham Five years ago, it was about building a fanbase early doors, so by the time the show came on, everyone knew about it. But now social media has become an awful lot more. It still facilitates conversation but, at its best, it takes that conversation and allows viewers to have an impact on a show.

Suddenly everyone, from marketing to PR to digital, has to work together and recognise each other’s disciplines, which is quite difficult.

people are constructing their own storylines. Programme-makers are no longer such strict storytellers.

My worry is that because we can see social media and it’s cheap for research, we will stop trying to have those conversations face to face. We need to always remember that some people don’t want to use social media to talk.

So you have to bear in mind that social media can be amazingly superficial and sometimes, ultimately, meaningless.

Social media might be fine for certain demographics, but it’s not going to be your whole audience.