Secondary research

Secondary research: involves the summary, collation and/or synthesis of existing research rather than primary research, where data is collected from, for example, research subjects or experiments.

Advantages: 

• Easy to access
• it doesn't cost a lot to find what your looking for
• it may answer your question that you was looking for
• 

Disadvantages: 

• The answer you might be looking for might not be specific and not what you were looking for
• Sometimes the information you was looking for will be incomplete and not all be there
• the quality of the research might not be up to date and might be different to the present day

Secondary research is research that already exists, its cheap and easy to find but its also often unreliable due to anyone being able to post comments on the internet. it can also be found within books and not just on the internet. 

Research companies such as the broadcasts audience research board (barb) collect information relating to television viewing figures. They then sell this
data to television broadcasters such as itv and bbc and others.