As the television networks and ad buyers do the upfront dance, the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau is weighing in with a new survey indicating that television remains consumers’ favorite medium, and that in many ways they prefer cable to broadcast.
The CAB commissioned Scarborough Research to ask consumers about their usage and attitudes toward various media.
The study used an unusual methodology. It re-contacted 2,600 people who had already responded to a previous syndicated Scarborough study and asked them about their media usage and preferences. Those results could be cross-matched against the information about that sample already on hand.
According to the study, people said advertising on television tended to be the medium most likely to push them to view brand Web sites. The advantage was 2-to-1 over newspapers and radio spots, and 50% higher than magazines.
The survey found that 26% of its sample who saw a brand commercial on television said they sought out more information on that brand’s Web site within the past 30 days.
Television also was doing more than creating awareness, the attribute for which it has long been given credit. The survey found that TV has a leading role in helping consumers differentiate between products and deciding which product to buy and where to buy it.
In the survey, 27% of the sample called TV the medium where they learned about the best place to purchase a product or service.
When it comes to the source that helped consumers pick a particular brand of a product or service, TV came in slightly behind the Internet, which was named by 29%, compared to the 27% who pointed to TV. Newspapers were third at 19%.
In the survey, viewers who described themselves as heavy TV users tended to prefer cable networks and cable programming.
When it came to recommending networks to others, 25% said they would tell friends to watch ad-supported cable networks, compared with 19% who would tout broadcast networks.
Just over a quarter of those surveyed (26%) said they would miss ad-supported cable networks if they were no longer available, compared to 23% for broadcast networks.
And 25% said they talk to others about programs on cable networks, compared with 20% who felt that way about broadcast networks. Those cable programs are their favorite shows, according to 33% of the people surveyed. Just 23% said their favorite programs are on broadcast.
They also said they set aside time to watch programs on cable networks more often than they said they save time for broadcast shows and that cable shows are unique, with 48% of respondents saying cable networks “offer the kinds of programs I can’t find anywhere else” compared to 11% for broadcast.
Advertising got a better reception on cable, too.
Of those surveyed, 17% said they found the advertising on cable networks “just right” for the programming, compared with 13% for broadcast.
Although cable networks have more clutter than the big broadcast networks in many cases, viewers by a wide margin—33% to 12%—believed cable networks tend to show fewer commercials.
CAB President Sean Cunningham said these early findings barely scratched the surface of the data that could be mined from the survey. He said the data will be available to CAB members who can do deep dives to try to match up how viewers feel about cable with the audiences who either plan to buy an advertiser’s product in the near future or who fit a particular consumer profile.