ANALYSIS OF TV VIEWERS

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30541, 9 September 1964, Page 22

ANALYSIS OF TV VIEWERS

(Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.)

LONDON, September 8.

The habits of the average television viewer in Britain have been summed up by Mr Kenneth Adam, director of 8.8. C. television, for the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

An average man and his wife, he said, spend about two and a half hours a day with the television and radio, a little more at weekends. It was a mark of the average viewer that he enjoyed his broadcasting. It was both relaxing and invigorating. A lot of his viewing was routine, tied to a series, and he resented interference with it. Sometime he was bored, or outraged, but more often because of overruns, or failure to keep to scheduled programmes than by programmes themselves. Errors Spotted He was quick to spot errors in news or quiz programmes. He adored spotting an anachronism and had been known to do so in Shakespare and ring up to complain. There was a profoundly important issue here, the desire for participation, said Mr Adam. “We give him too little opportunity of indulging this and we are to blame for it. He finds plenty in the programmes to talk about in the pub or train, especially on sport” Women became much less involved except in discussion on consumer goods.

“On the whole, his reaction is remarkably favourable. He finds it difficult to say what he is net getting that he would like. He is strikingly nostalgic. Nobody now is as good as Hancock was. ‘Z Cars’ was never the same once P. C. Steele left. He loves repeats. “He is addicted to news and weather and certain serious public affairs programmes. The extent to which he watched current affairs regularly was untypical of viewers generally in the Western world. “He has not much use for arguments about religion, but enjoys the vague well-being which good hymn-singing brings him.” Nothing was likely to lead to greater family tension than a breakdown of, or interference with, the “box.”