Entertainment Audience Research Association
Start Further Along
A private association for entertainment researchers sharing what actually works, and also what doesn’t.
You don’t have to start at zero.
Not a course, not a keynote, not a vendor demo. Some of us are further along, some are just starting, and all of us are working on something someone else has already faced.
Which tools hold up in real research work and which fell apart in week three, and what it took to get legal and leadership comfortable with them. Failures get discussed as openly as wins. That’s the half nobody publishes, and the half that saves you a quarter.
Every project you start, someone here has already run at it, or is about to. That’s the whole arrangement: what you worked out last year is what someone else needs this month, and the thing blocking you now is something somebody already solved.
In parallel, at another company, right now, and neither of you knew. Seeing how five people approached the same question is worth more than any single answer to it.
What this is, and what it isn’t.
The second list is why the first one works. People say what’s actually happening because they know what can’t happen here.
- Peers who do audience research in entertainment, learning from each other
- Real experience with AI tools, including the ones that didn’t work
- Practical help navigating privacy, legal review, and internal approval
- A standing group that supports its members through job changes
- Somewhere to think out loud when there’s nobody at work to think with
- A place to exchange competitive or confidential information
- A vendor showcase or a lead-generation channel
- A forum where anyone speaks for their employer
- A training course with an instructor at the front
- A research site: nothing here is citable, even anonymized
Four places this happens.
The monthly call is the spine. The rest is what makes it a group rather than a meeting.
The monthly session
Virtual session, poll results, one prepared topic, then open floor.
The rules, restated in thirty seconds. Every time.
Sent five days ahead, anonymous, reported in aggregate. We open on the surprises.
One subject, one member, twenty-five minutes: a tool teardown, a workflow, a method.
Unstructured, and the reason the rest exists. Nothing recorded, no AI notetakers.
Whatever needs more time carries into Discord, where it stays.
A different city each time
Attached to conferences you’re already attending, so it costs you a dinner rather than a flight. The quarter’s in-person replaces that month’s call.
Between the sessions
Where the day-to-day help actually happens: a question at 4pm on a Tuesday, a link, a warning about a tool. History stays put, so what the group works out stays searchable months later.
The quarterly white paper
One topic a quarter, researched properly and published by the association: clean facts and sound data on the questions your organization is actually arguing about. It carries our name, not yours. Take it into the room where the decision gets made and let it make the case for you.
Who you’d be sitting with.
The roster is public as roles, not names.
Names and employers are never published.
You join. Not your company.
Membership is individual and portable. It moves with you between jobs, and you keep it while you’re looking for the next one.
Who can join
Open to individuals whose primary work is research, insights, or analytics in entertainment: film, television, streaming, music, or games. Academics and educators in the field are welcome, at every level and every level of AI experience.
One hard rule. If any part of your pay depends on winning or keeping client accounts, you can’t be a member. A room stops being useful the moment someone in it is selling, and how you get paid is the only reliable test.
Vendor-side people in non-revenue roles are admitted case by case. Board seats are disclosed individually.
Sign in with LinkedIn
Confirms you’re a real person with a real career. Six short questions after that.
By the board
Two questions: do you do this work, and are you free to speak without selling.
Sign, then the invite
You sign the member agreement and your Discord invite follows the same day.
What every member agrees to.
Four commitments, covering the calls, the in-person meetings, and the server. The signed member agreement carries the same commitments with the enforcement details.
On the Discord archive. Live conversation leaves no trace on purpose. That’s what lets people speak freely in the moment. Writing is different: you know it persists as you type it. So Discord history is kept, because what the group works out in March is worth more in October. What’s restricted is where it travels, not whether it’s kept.
The association is member-led.
The board sets the calendar, reviews applications, safeguards the rules, and remains publicly accountable for the room it creates.
Named leadership, published affiliations.
Every board member’s name, role, professional affiliation, and relevant conflict disclosures will be published here before public applications open. Admissions will be decided by a non-vendor majority.
Next Practice is a program of the Entertainment Audience Research Association.
Applications are open.
Founding cohort forming now, ahead of the first session on 12 November. Reviewed within a week.
Start with LinkedIn
Signing in confirms you’re a real person with a real career, and saves you retyping your name and email. We read your name, email, and photo, nothing else, and we never post.
- 1Sign in, about ten seconds
- 2Six questions, roughly ninety seconds
- 3Board reviews within a week, then your Discord invite
to open the application