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Posted on April 17th, 2009 by Jeff Storan
It should surprise no one that audiences with different preferences for programming genres watch different channels. But what kind of loyalty do audiences demonstrate for networks’ primetime line-ups? What part of a network’s audience is its loyal core? What part of its ratings is attributable to people who are “just passing through”?
To gain insight to audiences’ loyalty to networks and discover which networks attract the attention of audiences with widely differing preferences for content, we again turn to heat maps applied to tune-in data gathered through TNS Media Research’s InfoSysTV.
The tables below express two audiences’ tune-in to four networks’ primetime line-ups by day of week for a month. The circle radii indicate the relative size of the cumulative audience viewing the networks’ programming each day of the week. The percentage is the ratio of viewers who tuned in more than once to the cumulative audience. The colors of the circle indicate how the loyalty percentage compares to the general viewing population; the darker the blue, the higher the degree of loyalty compared to the general population.
The first thing we notice is that the viewers who tune in to networks’ primetime programming week after week are the minority. During the example month, no more than 39% of either audience tuned in to any networks’ primetime two or more times.
We also see differences in audiences’ affinity for the four networks’ programming. Network3 attracts Crime Solvers in greater numbers than Family Oriented viewers and enjoys relatively high degrees of loyalty from Crime Solvers on Monday and Friday.
Although the loyalty Crime Solvers demonstrate for Network3 is greater than the general viewing population’s, only a small fraction of the audience (18% of Friday primetime viewers and 13% of Monday primetime viewers) tune in more than once. Through examination of this view of data, Network3 might realize the opportunity to improve its ratings by focusing its promotional efforts on the Crime Solvers.
A note on construction: we built the circles in the table using Sparklines for Excel. The gray bars accompanying the loyalty percentages are Data Bars enabled with XL 2007 conditional formatting.
[...] general descriptions of the audience with a Geographic Distribution, a Genre Tune-in Index and the Primetime Loyalty heat map (which we covered in greater detail in a previous post). The Geographic Distribution [...]