Job Advertisement Letter: Apprentice Digital Video Production Producer

                                                                                                         
                                                                                                                18/06/2014
Dear Mr Cook,

I am writing in connection with the advertisement for the apprentice digital video production producer job. As a concerned media student, I would like to make a proposal how to improve your advertisement. The advertisement appears to undergo some contractual, legal and ethical issues. Indeed there are evidences to show that there are religious views and age discrimination issues presented in the job description. It is outlined in the advertisement that you are looking for a male/female aged below 30. It is not acceptable and it can be said unarguably that you are violating the law. There are laws that prohibit employment discrimination because of age. Discrimination due to religious views also occurs when you mention that an applicant should promote the ideals of the Christian faith.  Besides, the advertisement presents an extremely broad contract, where the hours of work per week are between 10-45 hours and the salary is between £15,000 and £35,000. The job role is limited by an exclusivity clause where the successful applicant must agree to only work for your organisation. However, the advertisement does not include a confidentiality clause, which is optional but can be used as an advantage to your organisation because it offers protection against former employees who might use confidential information at a new workplace.

As an employer you should value the diversity of our society and strive to employ a workforce that reflects the community you serve. The Equality Act 2010 provides protection against discrimination on the basis of age in hiring, promotion, discharge, compensation, or terms, conditions or privileges of employment. Employers who discriminate on the basis of age face awards of unlimited compensation. Miriam O'Reilly's case is one of the ageism examples. Former presenter Miriam O'Reilly was fired in 2009 on the basis of her age. She went to court and won an age discrimination case against the BBC in 2011. You, as an employer, should reduce the risk of discrimination complaints from disgruntled job applicants. Your job advertisements should avoid requirements which would automatically rule older or younger workers out of a role. According to the Equality Act, 'employees and applicants are protected if they follow any religion, do not follow a certain religion or have no religion at all'. The Act states 'it is unlawful to discriminate a person on the basis of his/her religious beliefs'. In 2007 British Airways employee suffered discrimination at work over her Christian beliefs. Nadia Eweida took her case to  the European Court of Human Rights after BA made her stop wearing her white gold cross visibly. She won the case a year later.Requesting to film a short documentary for the job application you are trying to avoid employer liability. According to the law, an employer has liability for copyright infringement by employees.  An applicant is not covered by this law because he/she is not employed. The applicant  can be sued, face criminal charges or fined for copyright infringement because you demand him to use a popular music soundtrack in the documentary. Even if he/she decides to pay for the soundtrack, he/she will face big expenses that are not covered by compensation of £20 that you offer. Besides, it shall be the duty of every employer to ensure the health, safety and welfare at work of all his employees. Moreover, an employee can join trade union in order to gain greater power and security at work. Trade union membership can provide greater influence collectively with employers than workers have as separate individuals.To sum up all things mentioned above, I can state that an applicant will not be protected until employed.

As an employer, you are responsible for drawing up and passing Codes of practice and policies and procedures on applicants to avoid legal issues. Guidelines under these codes should be designed to ensure that generally accepted standards are applied to contents of the documentary to provide protection for adults and people under eighteen from harmful and offensive material. The guidelines should also promote socially positive values.The representation within the proposed documentary may break ethical codes. You are asking the applicant to portray  females as victims of rape and  males as rapists. This is completely wrong to stereotype against genders simply stating that females are victims of rape and that males are rapists. Although sexual assault more commonly affects women, men are also affected. Therefore, this representation can create social concerns because, as it is widely known, media can influence the audience. In this case the video can lead to negative perception of male population.

You are also asking the applicant to interview teenagers - rape victims and offenders. Film makers should pay particular attention to the privacy of people under eighteen.There is a whole section of the Ofcom Broadcasting Code dedicated to protecting children:  'Protecting the Under-Eighteens'.  If to assess the proposed documentary against the Code, we find the film is likely to break the code rules. According to the Code 'material that might seriously impair the physical, mental or moral development of people under eighteen must not be broadcast'. Therefore, you are breaching the Code rules asking 'to plan and produce a short documentary (including re-enactments) that can be shown to children at high school promoting the No Means No date rape campaign'. Moreover, you are asking to include interviews of teenagers 'who might be/have been affected by the topic'. In accordance with the Code 'broadcasters should pay particular regard to the potentially vulnerable position of any person who is not yet adult who is involved as a witness or victim'. The following sections support the rule mentioned above: 1.28 'Due care must be taken over the physical and emotional welfare and the dignity of people under eighteen who take part or are otherwise involved in programmes. This is irrespective of any consent given by the participant or by a parent, guardian or other person over the age of eighteen in loco parentis'; 1.29 'People under eighteen must not be caused unnecessary distress or anxiety by their involvement in programmes or by the broadcast of those programmes'. In Section Two: 'Harm and Offence' the rules are also designed to protect people under eighteen: 'the content of media services must provide adequate protection for members of the public from the inclusion in such services of harmful and/or offensive material'. I would like to remind you that Ofcom, the UK’s broadcasting regulatory body, came into existence in January 2003 and exist because of the Communications Act (2003) and the Broadcasting Act (2010). The Obscene Publications Act 1959 (and later amendments) is designed ‘to penalise purveyors of obscene material by making it an offence‘, and  ‘to prevent such materials from reaching the market by way of seizure and forfeiture proceedings’. You are breaking the Act in your intention to show the video with enactments at High School where the children age range is 11 – 16 years old.This is also inappropriate due to the BBFC’s (The British Board of Film Classification) rating of such videos.  According to the classification guidelines  the proposed video will get certification as a film for 18 – suitable only for adults. No one younger than 18 may see the film, where material or treatment appears to us to risk harm to individuals or, through their behaviour, to society. For example, the detailed portrayal of violent or dangerous acts, or sexual violence, or other harmful violent activities. This is done to protect children from potentially harmful or otherwise unsuitable media content. You also violate the Intellectual Property law asking the applicant to use a “popular music soundtrack” offering a compensation of £20. The applicant may be forced to break Copyright law using a popular soundtrack without permission because £20 offered by you is not obviously enough to cover the purchase of the right to use the track in the video. It is not a guarantee that the applicant will get the written permission from the copyright holder(s) or publishers of the music to use the soundtrack production either. I do not think you are not aware of the potential infringements.

Thank you very much for reading my letter. I hope you will take my arguments into consideration in order to improve your advertisement and to avoid the contractual, legal and ethical issues in the future.

Yours sincerely,

Vlad Taraskin

References:
http://www.bbfc.co.uk/sites/default/files/attachments/BBFC%20Classification%20Guidelines%202014_0.pdf
http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/broadcast/831190/broadcastingcode2011.pdf
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/85012/easy-read.pdf
http://www.acas.org.uk/media/pdf/d/n/Religion-or-Belief-and-the_workplace-guide.pdf
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1959/66/pdfs/ukpga_19590066_en.pdf
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Eliz2/7-8/66/contents
http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p01_uk_copyright_law
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/jan/11/countryfile-miriam-oreilly-tribunal
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2264855/Nadia-Eweida-BA-bullying-lawyers-I-God-side.html

Job roles

Technologies in the Film and TV Industries

Is TV News a window on the world?

                                                                                                             1. Introduction

To many people, TV news is the window on the world. The news gives access to information, to a broader perspective of the world than we would otherwise have. TV news expands our view and understanding of the world. However, very often television news is biased and provide us with false truth and distorts the world it projects. As it is known, media have tremendous power in setting ideology. Therefore, somebody's interpretations  of the news is presented on TV rather than objective facts. Objectivity and fairness are rare. The ideas of impartiality and objectivity are under pressure in our times. Unfortunately, very often the information that we get from TV news fits the needs of ideological struggle. There are increased signs of propaganda. By the way, on the Internet, there is less control over what gets published, and so biased news pieces are available along with objective pieces. To portray issues fairly and accurately, media must broaden their range of sources. Otherwise, they serve not as a window on the world but merely as megaphones for those in power.  

2. However, the law formally states  that the news should represent real life in a true light. The TV news do many things to persuade viewers  that they are 'a window on the world'.
Starting sequences have many purposes:

• they attract attention 
• they give a recognisable brand image to the news programme 
• they use computer graphics which connote technological sophistication, therefore accuracy of the news is  expected

But the main purpose of news starting sequences is trying to show us that the news is a ‘window on the world’ through connotation and iconic symbols.
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In the shown above BBC NEWS 2014 title sequence an animated graphic sequence begins showing red transparent concentric rings connoting the news being impartial. The rings merge and expand while maps of the world fade in and out of view. The names of world cities appear and disappear until we see a large figure 1 with the logo of BBC News. The connotations of the maps and world city names connote worldwide coverage of news. Loud brass and percussion music accompanies the entire sequence connoting the significance and authority of the news. During the opening sequence, we can see the entire BBC studio with all the equipment and the surrounding area connoting that they are not hiding anything from viewers.

Sets and presenters
The news is also trying to present itself as impartial and realistic through the sets and presenters.The look of the presenters is also formal: they wear formal clothes to emphasize the authority of the news. Formal standard language is used by news presenters. The  serious tone means that the news programme is an important authoritative source of reliable information.  Its sole purpose is to inform the audience in a serious manner, which indicates that the news that they are broadcasting is a serious presentation of the facts. The studio newsreaders remain fixed within the studio environment. This fixed role further constructs them as being in an authoritative position.
The legal and regulatory framework
The UK broadcast regulator OFCOM is approved by the government. Its duty is to protect the public from harmful or offensive material. According to the regulations impartiality is a requirement for broadcasters. All broadcasters must be objective and do not show signs of bias. 
The Ofcom Broadcasting Code.
Section Five: Due Impartiality and Due Accuracy and Undue Prominence of Views and Opinions

Interestingly that the BBC is not subject to all of the requirements of the Broadcasting Code. For example, it is not subject to the rules on impartiality and accuracy. The BBC has their own Editorial Guidelines.

But does BBC news deliver what it claims? Very often it delivers distortion and fabrication of facts.

Example: Ukraine -  whenever it's neo-Nazi Right Sector, they're called protesters by the BBC news, and on the other hand, pro-Russians are called terrorists.

Protesters???

3. The gatekeeping process
Gatekeeping process is a process of how information moves from source to receiver. The news passes through many steps of processing on its way to the receiver, and at each step in the process, the original data is reduced in length, edited for style, censored, and so on.
The acquisition of news can be carried out by news gathering from the following sources:
Reporters 
They live in the community and every day contact with people in the area.
Correspondents
They are the part time journalists who work for the TV channel.
Very often their comments are based more on an opinion rather than facts.  This leads to
bad reporting thus not showing reality in a neutral, unbiased and impartial way.
Monitoring officers
They listen to the transmissions in different languages, translate them into English and make a report of it.
News agencies
They sell their stories to news producers worldwide.





Press conferences















Court cases or trials

Other media news (newspapers, Twitter,etc)
However, these news sources cannot be totally unbiased and trustworthy. In all these situations, when news comes into the news studio, rather than news teams going out to find it,  it is easy for a news program to become a victim of spin.

The newsgathering process

The news gathering process involves
1) planning
2) working in the field: interviewing the relevant people who have opinions and knowledge about the topic; attending events related to the story idea.
3) monitoring the web : the Internet is a huge source of information. It is often necessary to be familiar with background information on the topic.

News Values

The most widely studied list of news values was proposed by Norwegian scholars Johan Galtung and Mari Ruge in 1965.  The scholars proposed twelve selection criteria such as frequency, threshold, unambiguity, meaningfulness,consonance, unexpectedness, continuity, composition,  reference to elite nations,  reference to elite people, reference to persons, reference to something negative. By these values gatekeepers make decision about newsworthiness of news.They said the more an event
satisfied particular conditions the more likely it would be selected as news.
Galtung and Ruge define and describe each of these news factors as below:

Galtung and Ruge's list of news values has been criticized by many scholars. However, it is considered the most classic news values classification.
Time flies and dictates new values. The four new news values are:

•  
• Visualness

In our times visualness is the the most dominant news value. Our age is a visual one, where images count more than words. The ability of journalists to “get pictures” determines whether an event is selected as news. Visualness is driving  the selection of news in television nowadays.

<-----This is the moment a drunk passenger stripped naked at the airport.

• Emotion 

The news should have elements of entertainment to be interesting and appealing to audiences.

<------David Beckham's emotional farewell

• Conflict   

 The news are often presented in terms of conflicting views. It is considered to be  newsworthy. 

<------Journalists destroy studio set as TV debate on Syria turns into an on-air brawl

• the “celebrification” of the journalist 

Very often such journalists provide their own perspective on the events.
“ We have celebrified the news to the point where we are losing the news, where it is more about what some people think than what they know.”—Frank Sesno, former CNN White House correspondent.

Not everything can be shown or said in TV news. There are laws which prevent some things being broadcast. One of them concerns the coverage of sexual and other offences in the UK involving under-eighteens.

Some more rules concern Privacy:

Television channels have to balance between viewers who watch the TV programmes and advertisers to survive. Therefore, news gatekeeping mechanisms have to handle commercial agendas in a way that does not endanger the trustworthiness of the viewers.  Advertisers pay big sums of money for seconds of airtime. It is no surprise that the advertisers have the influence on content of news. Therefore, the news is not always chosen because of newsworthiness but is influenced by profit motives, by the race to get the story first in order to increase rating. For instance, '' in Newsweek’s June 6, 1983 issue, Newsweek published an article detailing the nonsmoker’s rights movements. When the tobacco advertisers learned about this, they withdrew their advertisements from that issue, which may have cost Newsweek as much as one million dollars in advertising''(White Larry C. Merchants of Death. New York: William Morrow Beech Tree Books, 1988, p 139).

There is competition between news companies - who will get the better news and do it faster. Late breaking stories are usually given in a hurry, therefore they are not always trustworthy. Technical issues might also occur: problems with live translations for press conferences,etc

TV producers have to fight to get and  keep the audience's attention. Therefore, TV news programme makers use different techniques to construct their narrative stories. TV news narratives are constructed around segments, e.g. an individual news story. These short segments don't demand much attention, and often not necessarily directly connected to other segments of the programme. Segments are easily accessible for casual viewing, and deliver quick, easy chunks of news. The narrative plot of television news is much less continuous than that of films. News stories usually start with a summary of key information, followed further details in decreasing order of significance.  However, sometimes the narrative structure of news resemble a ‘soap opera’.

Actuality footage gives added value to news because it is crucial to the narrative story. However, ''much actuality footage is in fact archive footage, and even when not, always a 'representation' of the reality rather than the reality itself''.

Conclusion

In our era we are getting news from very different sources: television, radio, print versions of newspapers and magazines, Internet. The majority of young people nowadays get news and information from social networking: through Facebook, Twitter or other social networking sites. They are less likely to use newspapers, television, or radio to access the news. The majority of older people continue to discover news through TV. Unfortunately, we cannot completely trust the information other sources provide either. There is also a lot of misinformation. Although TV news stories are often inaccurate and biased, television remains an important news source for many people. Media illiterate people get affected by false information. False information can lead to unintended reactions. Political, economic, and social events often shape people's life, that is why it is important to have access to the most accurate and true information. In 2013 a tweet from Associated Press twitter account told about an attack on White House. The twitter informed that American president Obama was injured.  This had negative affect not only on the citizens but also on the US stock market.

Moreover, nobody should pay money for being misinformed. Therefore, I think it matters how the news is shown. The news should not tell us what to think but it should set the agenda on what we should think about.
It seems that often mainstream news reflects the values of the middle class, middle age, southern, university educated males who control production of TV news. Evidently it is more newsworthy when covering the news in more democratic way.
I personally think there is no chance for TV news to be unbiased and impartial. The TV channels are mostly private and, as we know, ''he who pays the piper calls the tune''. What concerns public TV channels, news serve as megaphones for those in power.

Media ownership and funding

Ownership Concepts:

Public Service Broadcastung (PSB)

Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) - A system of broadcasting which tries to educate + inform its audience, not just to sell stuff to them. Public service broadcasting programmes are broadcast for the public benefit rather than for purely commercial purposes (local news, children, arts and religious programmes).

'The British Broadcasting Company' (BBC) was founded in 1922 by by various private firms. John Reith was the first Director General of the BBC. Nowadays its funding is primarily through government-set television license fees. Nowadays the BBC is failing in its public service-broadcasting. It frequently fails to be accurate, impartial and objective in its reporting of news and politics.

Other channels that have some public service: ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5

Commercial Broadcasting

Commercial Broadcasting exists to make money. It sells its audience to advertisers - ITV, MTV, etc. Some commercial broadcasters also make money from subscription.
The commercial broadcaster has to make a profit in order to satisfy the shareholders.

Corporate and Private Ownership

Corporate and Private media ownership has both positive and negative points. On the one hand, Corporate and Private media ownership can result in better quality products due to competition.
On the other hand, corporate and private ownership can lead to media firms placing profit above public interest.

Global Companies

The existence of hundreds of TV channels may lead the viewer to the idea that there is a true diversity and variety in today's television. However, it is just illusion.Six large companies control what we see every day. These companies own 90% of the world's media.

Let's take a look at who owns what on television.
Here are the TV channels owned by 6 largest companies in media:
1. VIACOM 

2. NEWS CORPORATION

3. TIME WARNER

4. WALT DISNEY

5. CBS

6. GENERAL ELECTRIC

Concentration of Ownership

-Cuts out competition (monopolisation)
-Synergy -crossplatform
Six companies own 90% of the world's media.

Vertical Integration (owning stuff in different sectors)

Some media companies have focused on increasing economic control over all aspects of the production process in order to maximise profits. For example, film corporations not only make movies (production), but distribute them to their own cinema chains( distribution and exhibition). This is referred to as vertical integration. For example, the WARNER VILLAGE CINEMAS, a chain of cinemas operated by Warner Bros. in the United Kingdom.

Horizontal Integration/monopolisation

Some media companies are characterised by horizontal integration or cross media ownership – this refers to the fact that global media corporations often cross media boundaries and invest in a wide range of media products. NewsCorporation, for example, owns newspapers, magazines, book publishers, television channels and film studios in several countries.

Funding Types:

The Licence Fee - BBC work is funded by an annual television licence fee, which is £145.50 a year per viewing household under the age of 75 using any type of equipment to receive live television broadcasts. The fee is set annually by the British Government and agreed by Parliament.
Subscription - Sky (Sky sports, Sky movies) - customers must pay to have the broadcast.

One-off payment to own product - Freeview Boxes - allow the users to experience a small number of channels through the one off purchase of the box.







Pay per View - customers must pay to have the broadcast decrypted for viewing, but usually only entail a one-time payment for a single or time-limited viewing. Programs offered via pay-per-view are most often movies or sporting events, but may also include other events, such as concerts. Sky also use a Pay Per View system.
Sponsorship - Broadcast sponsorship on Channel 5-

Advertising - way of funding (ITV, Channel 4). An example: Minute to Win It with Cadbury Spots vs. Stripes on ITV2
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and Annabel’s Kitchen with Fairy Liquid on CITV.
Product Placement - funding from product placement in TV programmes. Advertisers pay money for placement of their products on TV shows. For example, a fashion company might pay for a presenter to wear its clothes during a programme.  Since 2011 when Ofcom allowed Product Placement in the UK, ITV has been leading the way.
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Private Capital - funding from individual investors or private capital groups. Using private capital usually requires written agreements to secure the funds. Very often it is like a form of loan. Private capital investors may desire to receive their financial return.
Crowd-funding - when the funds are collected through asking for it from the public.
Development Funds - for example, the ''BFI Lottery''

• Support the distribution launch of films that have the potential to reach beyond their core market.
• They champion fresh approaches in distribution and marketing films that will help films find new audiences, both in cinemas and additional platforms.
• The annual budget of distribution fund has an anual fund of £4 million.
• It has 4 distribution funding strands, each speacificially designed to show different types of film

http://www.nea2fguide.co.uk/funds/bfi-film-fund/


 

Connotations of Newsreaders

I have found an extract from a BBC TV 10 o'clock news programme and embedded it to my blog.

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Here is my analysis of the connotations of the title sequence:
The news programme's title sequence establishes the status of importance and authority. The title sequence also gives a recognisable brand image to the news programme. First a newsreader is shown at her desk. She outlines main news stories, accompanied by brief actuality footage. Loud brass and percussion music accompanies the outline connoting the significance. Then an animated graphic sequence begins showing dark red concentric rings over a white-grey background connoting the authority of the news. The rings merge and expand while map of the world fade in and out of view. The rings sometimes centre on Edinburgh, Cardiff and London. The names of world cities appear and disappear until we see a large figure 10 with the logo of BBC News. The connotations of the maps and cities names connote worldwide coverage of news.

Here is my analysis of the connotations of the newsreaders:

Formal standard language is used by the BBC newsreaders. The purpose of this is to inform the audience about the current events, not to entertain. The  serious tone means that the news programme is an important authoritative source of reliable information. This news programme is aimed at an adult audience who are more interested in being well-informed about main current affairs. They want an informational and serious programme. The use of mainly standard formal vocabulary demonstrates that the BBC uses a more formal and serious linguistic style. Its sole purpose is to inform the audience in a serious manner, which indicates that the news that they are broadcasting is a serious presentation of the facts.The look of the presenter is also formal: she is wearing a jacket. The studio newsreader remains fixed within the studio environment. This fixed role further constructs them as being in an authoritative position. 

The  programme informs the audience by the use of reporters and  interviews, giving more sides of a story. This creates the feeling of less biased information. The reporters are introduced with title and full name. This makes the programme more official sounding and means that the reporters are represented as professionals, rather than as individuals. News reporters also sign themselves off, which is again more official.  For example, “Andrew Plant...BBC news...in  Devon”. It gives it a more authoritative and ‘official’ tone. The interviews in this extract  show only responses by the interviewees providing the audience with a great deal of first hand information.

Here is my analysis of the mise-en-scene of the studio:

The mise-en-scene is full of vast amount of red colour with a touch of blue. Red colour associates with BBC news. We can also see other people in the background of the studio. The BBC presents itself as a corporation. It does not focus on individuals. Therefore, the news look more authoritative.

There is also a newswall with large smart-glass-like screens in the studio.The screens are movable so it makes the set up  more interesting.The 'podium' table is used in the studio to emphasize the importance and authority of the news.

The Nature and Purposes of Research in the Creative Media Industries

There are several types of research in the creative media industries .

Audience research deals with the investigations of the audience of media products. This type of research analyses what kind of people watch media products, what media products they choose and why. 

Market research involves investigations into target markets, competition, and consumers' demands.

Production research is conducted to get information about a media product (its content, locations,etc).

To conduct these types of research academic research methods are used: primary and secondary research.

Primary research involves original material and information. Primary research includes interview techniques, observations, questionnaires, surveys, participation in internet forums.Very often it is lengthy to conduct. However, the results of this research are more relevant because the research comes straight from original source. The two basic types of primary research are quantitative research and qualitative research. Quantitative research concerns information that you can measure in data, numbers and figures.The qualitative research does not rely on statistics or numbers. I have conducted a survey as primary research, which presents people's opinions on documentaries and freestyle football.

As you can see from this graph, 47% of all respondents were teenagers of 10-19 years old, 33% were young adults of 20-26 years old and 20% were 27-46 years old. In my opinion, the documentary should succeed in the appropriateness to target audience.

Almost a half of the respondents (47 %) have heard about freestyle football. However, the other half of the respondents have heard nothing about the sport.
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When I asked people 'Have you ever seen freestyle football on TV?', most people (93%) answered 'No'.

Fortunately, the vast majority of respondents(93%) would like to know more about this sport.

Interestingly, only 60% of the respondents watch documentary films. The rest 40% of the respondents think that documentaries are boring.

Good news that despite the lack of interest in documentaries, almost all respondents (93%) would like to watch a documentary about football freestyle.
I have interviewed a football freestyle professional

2. Secondary research includes data that has already been collected.  Secondary research includes books, journals, reference-based books and directories, periodicals, newspapers, film archives, photo libraries, internet. The purpose of this research is to identify key facts about the topic.The advantage of using secondary data is that it can save a great deal of time.  It takes much longer to collect new data (primary data) than to retrieve information that is already out there.  Also, it is much cheaper to get secondary data than primary data.
To collect secondary research data for my documentary, I gathered all information on freestyle football through the worldwide web. Here are my findings:

• It is the art and sport of juggling a football using all parts of the body to entertain audiences and outperform opponents in competitions
• The Freestyle Football Federation (F3) is world governing body for the sport that is committed to growing awareness of and participation in freestyle football worldwide. F3 own the World Freestyle Football Championships 
• Freestyle football has existed since 2000
• There are some freestyle football  internationally well-known websites are: Global Freestyle, UK Football Freestyle, BeyondFootball and Freestyle Football Federation

I also looked at existing news stories based around my idea:
http://www.eventmagazine.co.uk/Destinations/article/1291727/manchester-host-freestyle-football-championships/
http://www.beyondfootball.com/socialnetwork/freestyle-soccer-news
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/62323-freestyle-football-taking-football-to-the-next-level
I have also watched existing documentaries that are similar to my idea:

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A historical film ‘Ivan the Terrible’ relies on extensive primary research, which is based on original Russian history sources. The author of the film conducted a thorough research into costumes, haircuts, makeup, and props of that time. However, the film is not fully committed to historical accuracy. The film keeps history behind it, but also captivates the attention of the audience, of not being boring. Therefore, an audience research is necessary to conduct before filming a historical drama. Thanks to this research Eisenstein was able to touch the audience's feelings through the movie's storytelling and  depiction of the characters. Eisenstein tried to rehabilitate the czar, explaining that ''the personality of Ivan the Terrible and his historic role had to be thoroughly reconsidered. Ivan the IV's principal aim was to create a strong centralized sovereign State in place of the scattered, mutually hostile feudal principalities of Old Russia. [...] The heirs to the feudal lords [boyars and royal clans with ambitions to rule] did not scruple to resort to treachery and conspiracy. They secretly prepared the ground for an invasion of Russia by their western neighbors [Livonian Knights, Lithuanian and Polish forces], and it was they who cried to heaven about the cruelty and bloodthirstiness of the Moscow Tsar''.

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Audience research (audience data, audience profiling, demographics, geodemographics, consumer behaviour, consumer attitudes, audience awareness)

Market research (product market, competition, competitor analysis, advertising placement, advertising effects)

Production research (content, viability, placement media, finance, costs, technological resources, personnel, locations)
Data gathering agencies

The Broadcasters' Audience Research Board (BARB) is the organisation that gather data concerning audience measurement and television ratings in the United Kingdom. There are also three  market research companies in the UK: RSMB, Ipsos MORI, and Kantar Media.
RSMB are responsible for survey design, quality control and calculation methodology. Ipsos MORI are responsible for survey of the characteristics of the television owning population. Kantar Media is responsible for covering meter panel installation, data retrieval, processing and audience reporting functions.

RAJAR stands for Radio Joint Audience Research. It is the official body in charge of measuring radio audiences in the UK. Here is one of their data releases:

You can find more data releases here.
Assessing research data
It is vital to choose the right research methods to ensure that the collected information is reliable and valid. .
Reliability is the degree to which the study produces stable and consistent results. It is necessary to keep in mind the following questions while assessing the reliability:

•  Can it be trusted as a source of information?
•  Could it be biased  by people's opinions or affected by flaws in the research methods? 
•  If the research activity was done again, would it get the same results?

I suppose that my research is reliable because I conducted a questionnaire where more than one person was asked. However, there is always a place for improvement. It could be more reliable if more people would answer the questions (I got only 15 respondents).
Of course, reliability is vital, but it is not sufficient without validity.  For a research to be reliable, it also needs to be valid.
Validity concerns the relevance of information to the investigation. Validity refers to how well a research measures what it is aimed to measure.
Representativeness and generalisability
The participants in the research were representative of the population. Therefore, the data is generalisable. Generally, my target audience was interested in the concept of my documentary.