From Mom's House to Dorm Room – Nielsen Begins Measuring Collegiate TV Viewing
Each year, thousands of American higher educational institutions - colleges, universities and technical institutions - strive to provide their students with endless opportunities for bright and successful futures. And while securing an education that leads to a career may be the final goal for most students, the interim journey can sometimes be chock full of non-educational activities that make up college life: excessive sleeping, partying, non-stop eating, and watching inordinate amounts of TV. Currently Nielsen has no measurement tools in place to determine if “gaining the freshman 15” is indeed a phenomenon afflicting incoming students, however we have been able to recently confirm there is a behavioral trend that college students do watch excess amounts of television compared to other demographic groups.
In 2005, Nielsen launched a two-year pilot test to measure the viewing habits among college students living in dorm rooms, fraternity and sorority houses and off-campus apartments. Only students whose families were already participating in Nielsen's national sample were measured. The test results, sponsored by CBS, ESPN, FOX, the WB, Turner Broadcasting and Viacom, suggested that college students watch even more television than previously thought, at least 225 minutes a day.
Prior to 2005 college students who were already in Nielsen's samples were tracked only when they returned to their parents' primary home - usually during summer and winter breaks. The test, while proving effective at better understanding the viewing habits of college students in their college environment, does present its own unique challenges. There is a more complex recruitment process, for example, that involves reaching out to and receiving approval from not only the students and their parents, but from the academic institutions as well. From dorm rooms to apartment complexes to fraternity or sorority houses, the living arrangements for students are as varied as the students themselves. There are a number of technical challenges that must be addressed for collecting and transmitting data daily: accessing a myriad of phone systems (dorm room phones that require a code for example), students without phone service who need special equipment; power outages during vacations and seasonal breaks, just to name a few.
While there is little doubt that including college viewing in Nielsen's national sample will benefit the sponsors who cater to this younger demo, there are logistical business concerns that will also have to be addressed before moving from the pilot phase of the study. Costs, for example - will the results warrant the financial investment? To date the results from the pilot support Nielsen's decision to measure students – independent of their family's households -- in their collegiate housing by early 2007. Until then, Nielsen will continue to exclusively measure students whose families are already participating in Nielsen's national sample. We will refrain, however, from securing professors' thoughts on the correlation between low grades and partying- after all, that's what college freedom is all about, isn't it?
College Students TV Habits...
• On average, they watch over 225 minutes of television daily, with at least 50 minutes in primetime.
• 30% of their total viewing is during late night (Monday – Friday 11:30pm - 6am).
• In total, over 60% of their viewing is to cable programming.
• The inclusion of college students in the sample could potentially increase viewing levels of the 18-24 demographic by 3 to 12 percent, resulting in an additional 0.2 to 1.0 ratings points for certain programs.
Source: The Nielsen Company (www.nielsenmedia.com)
Posted By: Will Moss
Wednesday, September 5th 2007 at 12:37AM
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