Who Are Your Market’s Non-TV Viewers?

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(By Charlie Sislen) In my previous post (Use the “80/20 Rule to Attack Television”), I showed how, by using Scarborough, you can determine what percentage of your market is consuming the bulk of television. The example I created showed that nearly one-third of the market watched less than ½ hour of broadcast TV per week. In other words, no amount of TV advertising will impact – or reach – this portion of the population.

The first question many may ask is, who are these non-viewers and how do they differ from the rest of the population? There is a massive amount of national data that shows that they are younger and more affluent than the general population. However, we at Research Director, Inc. believe that market-specific data is much more powerful because it hits home. And, it is data you can use with local advertisers.

Below is a randomly selected market. The table shows that non-TV viewers span all demographic cells from 18 to 44, with over two-thirds (66.9%) of all 21-24 year olds not watching any broadcast TV.


A quick Google search will yield article after article showing that young adults are light users of broadcast TV. However, the fact that non-TV viewers out-index the market in every demo cell from 18 to 44 would shock many local advertisers. More surprisingly (to some) is that nearly one-third (31.5%) of all Adults 40-44 do not watch any broadcast TV.

Remember, many advertisers are focused on Adults 18-44 or a subset of that group. These are also the same advertisers that still believe broadcast TV is the Holy Grail. You now have a way to use big data to convince them otherwise.

Need help understanding how to show an advertiser that only a small portion of the population consumes a majority of broadcast TV viewership? Feel free to contact me at [email protected].

Charlie Sislen is a partner at Research Director, Inc. He can be reached at 410-956-0363 or by e-mail at [email protected]. This essay is part of a series titled “Growing the Radio Pie.” To view past articles, visit The Ratings Experts at Research Director, Inc. online here.

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