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by Sheila Lennon
'Bottom-up' journalism from the pros

June 7, 2002 • Today's weblog

The human nature behind ReplayTV: Fascinating (month-old, but new to me) study of people watching TV from the Financial Times (U.K.):

"...the glaring fact to emerge from all our households is that people spend most of their time actively avoiding ads.

Indeed, for most of our sample the ad breaks were a welcome chance to do other things. These activities varied from going for a cigarette to making the tea, to checking on the kids. As our single mother put it: "I already feel guilty for watching TV rather than working or tidying up so when the ads come on it's a three-minute guilt reducer and a chance to get things done."

If someone watching on their own encounters an ad break they invariably change channel. Zappers fall into two groups: "surfers" who move up and down the channels before returning, with remarkable accuracy, to their programme as the ads conclude, and "switchers" who go to a pre-designated "go-to channel" such as MTV or BBC News. In a social group, this zapping task is exclusively a male activity."

via Jakob Nielsen's Spotlighted Links
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