The research objective of this paper is to examine viewing behavior and trends arising from diverse U.S. broadband television audiences and their adoption and use of programming and technologies that provide greater control, convenience, and empowerment in television viewing. It focuses on broadband television audiences and presents measurement evidence of heightened or 'super' activism in both existing and emerging broadband television technologies and programming modalities. The paper further suggests that culturally-based need factors drive 'super' viewing activism among diverse U.S. audiences, and that this activism often results in trends that impact and influence the mainstream. Therefore, diverse U.S. broadband television audiences can now be seen as providing critical measurement intelligence into future viewing behavior, patterns and technologies associated with greater audience control and convenience and the emerging audience of the postmodern era.
This paper discusses a method to incorporate out-of-home viewing in the TAM ratings. In some cases the audience profile of channels and their programmes could be dramatically different if this viewing behaviour would be integrated in the ratings.
In any measurement system, there may be some groups that are more difficult to measure, or are perceived as more difficult to measure than others. In August of 1992, Nielsen started a program to address concerns about the accuracy of measurement of childrens and teens television viewing. Eighteen child and teen specialists were hired and trained to work with people meter homes with children and teens from the initial installation of the metering equipment throughout the two year tenure in the panel. These specialists we call people meter representatives. They have backgrounds in teaching, social work, counselling and coaching and therefore have the background and skills to build strong rapport with children and teens.
In television audience research in The Netherlands (and similarly in other European countries) viewing behaviour is registered by the meter on a Per second basis. A change in channels is noted from the moment a viewer watches a channel for fifteen seconds or longer. Audience behaviour during channel changes lasting less than fifteen seconds is attributed to the last channel the viewer watched for fifteen seconds or longer. As consequence, in the case of a series of quick channel changes, a delay in the registration of channel changes occurs. Assuming that relatively more switching occurs during commercial blocks than during programs, it can be expected that audience ratings for commercial blocks would benefit more from a persistence threshold than audience ratings for programmes. A study was carried out to determine the effects of a fifteen second threshold on the viewing behaviour reported, and found this threshold has no effect on audience rating for commercials. The only effect was a very small increase in the audience ratings for the ten national Dutch channels in relation to the other, foreign channels.
This study investigated the social viewing situation of children aged 4-11 watching television, which was split into three categories: solitary dewing, peer viewing, and co-viewing with an adult. The period in focus was late afternoon through evening every weekday during 1997. During he study period children spent 37% of their television viewing time engaged in solitary viewing, 11% in peer viewing, and 52% in co-viewing with an adult. Solitary viewing was highest in the late afternoon and Peaked between 6 and 06:30 p.m., whereas co-viewing with an adult was dominant later in the evening. However, children's solitary viewing never erased to exist and during the late prime time hours between 10-12 p.m., 1-2% of children watch television alone. More than 60% of viewing of all programme types took place with an adult present, except for children's programmes.
This joint research project was conducted by Millward Brown in four European countries (Italy, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and France) in March 1997 on a total sample of 100 children aged 6 to 12 years, all of whom watch television every day. This paper identifies the role played by TV within the activities of the European children interviewed, identifies viewing situations and preferences relating to TV programmes; identifies the perception of the most famous on-air TV cartoon characters; and establishes the suitability of TV cartoon characters to advertise specific brands or products.
This work constitutes an initial qualitative exploration, first stage of a study that should be completed with a quantitative inquiry to throughout the year. Its content is a global description of the children's audience of Open Television, whose most distinctive feature is the preference for programs for adults, rather than specially directed programs to the kids. The values and behavior patterns that they incorporate, as well as the thematic and thinking schemes that children learn, not correspond to their chronological age and level of development. Parental conflict arises from the opposition between the implied agreement with the transmitted values and their need to control what their sons.
This paper will highlight the impact of media fragmentation on overall television viewing habits in the United Kingdom and describe how the viewing of pre-recorded videos fits into this environment. Findings from the VideoTrak service will be used to illustrate the profile and viewing habits of the video audience and how they compare to TV and satellite viewers. A case study will demonstrate the contribution video adds to a multi-media schedule and the benefits it can provide to advertisers. AH VideoTrak information is derived from the industry standard BARB TV audience measurement panel and is therefore totally compatible with data used to buy, plan, and evaluate television advertising in the United Kingdom.
This paper deals with the fusion of BARB TV viewing information onto Superpanel, AGB's consumer purchasing panel. It breaks new ground in terms of the fusion technique used. Rather than matching panel members by commonly held demographic characteristics, the matching process is performed on individuals' TV viewing habits. This has been achieved by administering a detailed viewing questionnaire to each Superpanel housewife covering their viewing by daypart, selected programmes by channel, programme genres and the types of programme they enjoy. Thus the claimed viewing habits of Superpanel respondents are matched against the metered viewing behaviour of the BARB panel members. The resultant fused dataset contains the actual purchasing of individual Superpanel housewives together with their individual probabilities of viewing each commercial television channel at a given time (i.e. every commercial break).