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Abstract

An understanding of the determinants of viewer choice is fundamental to an analysis of the structure and profitability of the television broadcasting industry. This study approaches the question by broadly analyzing the distribution of audiences among programs and stations. Examination of national television ratings reveals that the share of the market captured by a given program varies widely across the nation. Since the factors that influence market shares seem to be very diverse and include such broad categories as program characteristics, station characteristics, and market characteristics, it seems instructive to first carefully analyze the data to identify the relative importance of the various factors. Factor analysis provides a convenient method for analyzing the vast array of television ratings data. This method transforms the data into a small number of principal components that help clarify the relationship among the many determinants of market shares. On examination the results indicated that station characteristics are the dominant factor explaining variations in program ratings and that the frequency assignment is the dominant station characteristic.

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Television Market Shares,Station Characteristics,and Viewer Choice

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