The relationship of various audience composition factors to television program types

Abstract

The mountains of data amassed by the various audience research services are rarely mined for the underlying factors of audience behavior. Published as part of the rating service reports is a vast amount of qualitative information that can be used to build a coherent picture of some of the many audiences to broadcast programs. (See “Qualitative Information Concerning Audiences of Network Television Programs” by Harrison B. Sommers, Journal op Broadcasting, Vol. V, No. 3, pp.147–160, Spring 1961.) The present study offers some predictable and some unpredictable findings from such published data on television program types and audience composition.