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In this era of technology, television communication has become inevitable for modern people. For many of them, picking up the remote controller to turn on the television is the first thing they will do after returning home.
Since the enactment of Cable Television Law in 1994, a variety of cable TV programs have become a static and easily accessible pastime for households. The cable TV channels which amount to more than 100 have segmented viewers into various groups. For each channel, a program receiving a share of more than 1% of the total audience can be considered a popular one. To seek survival, all programs have been made attract more audience, please the general viewers, and gain higher TV ratings.
TV ratings (share of total viewers) are affected by several factors, including program type, program quality, host experience, and compliance with social trends. Besides, the regular schedule and economic activities of human beings, such as hour effect, week effect, and month effect, are also influential. TV ratings of different types of programs are mutually affected and also affected by contingent events. Therefore, it is really difficult to find the right direction for programming.
To explore the time segment effects of Taiwan’s TV ratings, AGB Nielsen audience measurement data provided by ERA TV were adopted. Excluding terminated programs, the audience data of TV programs were collected on a 15-minute basis during Jan 2007 and May 2008. In addition to the rankings of cable and satellite programs, the household viewing data were also analyzed. Based on the total ratings, category ratings,and program ratings, the month effects and week effects were investigated to understand the significance of the time segment effects. According to the news and contingent events that occurred during the data period, the impact of certain news and contingent event was discussed. In this research, the variables included time segment, channel, program name, TV ratings, and total 15-minute ratings of the entire day. The data were analyzed for mean, standard deviation, variance of analysis, and etc. on SPSS.
The results showed that week effects would occur during every Monday morning and Friday evening, and the year effects would occur during the Chinese New Year and summer vacations. This finding revealed that TV audience size would increase during weekends, the Chinese New Year, and summer vacations. The ratings of news programs were consistent. Besides, TV programs would be mutually affected in their ratings. The influence of these effects on TV ratings depended on program types.
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