Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1957)

BROADCASTING THE BUSINESSWEEKLY OF TELEVISION AND RADIO Vol. 53, No. 24 DECEMBER 9, 1957 VIDEOTOWN GETS CHOOSY ABOUT TV • C&W test city, 10 years later, has stabilized viewing habits • Lesson: It takes creative vitality to increase audience size Tv advertisers, agencies and networks were put on notice over the weekend that to boost audience size from this point on, attention must be given to the "creative vitality of tv programs." This warning note, struck by Cunningham & Walsh's 10th annual Videotown study of tv family habits, also can be expected to alert program producers and others in the tv field, since findings of the study are circulated widely. According to the study, the American family still watches tv a lot, particularly in the evening, but the medium has become a part of everyday living; there's little if any novelty left and the excitement is gone. If the "typical" community of Videotown (actually New Brunswick, N. J.) is any criterion for the U. S., then this is the status of television viewing today. Cunningham & Walsh's study, slated for release last Saturday, leads into the subject in the report's summary this way: "A look at the year-by-year hours of viewing shows an irregular movement within a narrow range. It would seem that a peak has been reached in the number of hours the average individual in each category spends in front of the tv set, and that from now on there will be small changes (up and down) from year to year." It then winds up by asserting: "It would take a major change in programming to upset this trend." The summary's conclusion also states: "In the future, television viewing will follow a series of high level cycles. The movement will be influenced partly by new set developments, partly by social and economic changes which keep people at home or attract them away from home, but mostly by programming. The all important determinant for audience size is the creative vitality of tv programs." Although not one of the tv networks would comment when queried as to the survey's implied knuckle-rapping of programming, a spokesman for one called attention to the fact that the survey was based on programming last spring, that programming has since been revamped and that, according to latest audience measurement reports, viewing this fall is up. To clear up any misunderstandings as to what the report is aiming at, the preface makes these points: "Program critics have been more vociferous than usual in their denunciation of tv programs. 'Creeping mediocrity,' 'the real opiate of the people' and 'childish stuff' are some of the epithets being hurled. "The public is not so vocal, nor is it quick to act. For example, they will vow by all that's holy that westerns are infantile, that they are fit only for feeble-minded adults. They become quite vehement about it in discussions of programming. What did they watch last night — a western! "As interviewing in Videotown progressed from year to year, we found less and less a feeling of excitement about television. "People were watching just as much during weekday evenings (a total of IIV2 hours per week), but obviously with a much more critical eye. Watching became a fixed habit with hours of viewing taking a sidewise course rather than the emotional necessity which was so impelling at first." A preview of what C&W would issue in its Videotown report had been intimated by the agency's president, John P. Cunningham, in late October. Speaking at the annual meeting of the Assn. of National Advertisers, Mr. Cunningham warned that "a most important advertising tool" (television) may be "in danger of being blunted and dulled," that its strength was being sapped by a "boredom factor," and he hinted that advertising men perhaps ought not to add to current program fare unless they had something "better — a matter of creativity" [Advertisers & Agencies, Nov. 4]. Mr. Cunningham noted then that Videotown studies conducted by his agency had uncovered these attitudes of tv "boredom." The Videotown report, conducted by C&W's vice president and research director, Gerald W. Tasker, and research manager Gladys R. Kanrich, presents a potpourri of statistics, taking in such tv owners' "habits" as viewing, use of sets, radio listening, thoughts about buying new receivers, color, newspaper and magazine reading and movie attendance. What about family viewing? Is it up? At a level? Down? The answers: a qualified "yes" as well as "no." The most comprehensive portion of the WHAT VIEWER TOLD RESEARCHER . . . about Videotown' s weekly tv viewing (Mon.-Fri.) YEAR TOTAL PEOPLE IN TV HOMES % VIEWING PER DAY NO. VIEWING PER WEEKDAY AV. HOURS PER WEEKDAY (WHEN VIEWING) TOTAL INDIV. HOURS PER WK. 1953 28,434 76 21,610 3.52 338,336 1954 31,552 77 24,295 3.58 434,880 1955 32,504 87 28,278 3.39 479,312 1956 33,525 79 26,485 3.28 434,354 1957 33,861 81 27,427 3.21 440,203 Broadcasting December 9, 1957 • Page 31