TELEVISION'S NEW TECHNOLOGY: HARDWARE PLUS SOFTWARE EQUAL SEGMENTATION RESEARCH Available to Purchase

The necessity to assess television programming as programming (rather than merely as a vehicle to deliver advertising audiences) is discussed against the background of commercial television's rapidly changing technology, a principal effect of which has been to fragment formerly “mass” audiences. Traditional ratings data (because they lack adequate quantitative detail, contain no qualitative information, and measure programs only after they are aired) are becoming an insufficient basis for making either programming or advertising decisions. As audiences become increasingly segmented, the necessity to understand them (exactly who they are and why they watch particular programs) becomes apparent‐whether for purposes of developing programs, scheduling them, or ascertaining whether they constitute an efficient vehicle within which to place advertising messages. Audience understanding can come only from a considerably expanded base of systematic research.