Older Viewers, Low-Income Homes Most Attentive TV Audiences
- by Wayne Friedman , November 15, 2017
Older TV viewers and low-income TV homes have the greatest “attention” when it comes to watching TV programming and commercials.
TVision Insights, a company that tracks eye movements of people watching TV programs and commercials, says those 65+ have the highest “attention” index of any age group watching TV. TVision installs sensors on panelists’ TVs, tracking eye movements of multiple people in a room.
Viewers 65 years and older posted a 113.6 index in the company’s most recent survey. Conversely, viewers 18 years and younger have the lowest “attention” index score of any age group, at 89.7.
Results were the same with commercial attention on TV — with those 65 years and older scoring a 110.5 index and those 18 years and younger coming in at 90.6.
Overall, men have a slightly higher program and commercial "attention" index compared to women -- at 101.0 versus 99.0. Homes with lower household incomes score higher in attention than the highest-income homes.
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TVision looks at “attention” to a TV screen while the viewer is in the room. It calculates indexes looking at viewer’s eyes on the TV screen (in terms of seconds) divided by a viewer in the room with the TV on (in seconds).
In its latest report, from the period July 1 to September 30, TVision data was collected from 7,500 TV viewers in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York and Seattle. All demographic data was self-reported by the respondents.
Other types of viewer attentiveness studies conducted by diaries and audience recall have always indicated that young adults and upsacle viewers are somewhat less attentive to TV program content than older and low income/poorly educated viewers, and this new finding merely confirms what the older studies have been telling us for many decades. The difference, however, is that TVision has an ongoing operation with samples large enough to give us insights about various program genres and, perhaps more important, about commercials by genre, length, clutter in pod and other variables. Also possible are commercial wearout studies---if approached carefully---as well as "internals" ---like what happens during a given telecast and/or commercial as it plays on the screen in terms of holding the audience's attention. Lots of interesting data there----if it can be mined.