Radio, Future Role of

Dwight DeWerth-Pallmeyer , in Encyclopedia of International Media and Communications, 2003

V Radio Programming

Radio programming of the future will likely continue to be more and more tailored to individual tastes. As technological advances continue to assist consumers in retrieving radio signals from around the globe, revenues for individual stations may increasingly be based on modest subscription services and supported from advertisers outside the local area of programming origination. For example, a rural laborer who lives outside much of the year will be able to choose from a variety of satellite-distributed radio programs. The laborer might have very specific tastes that include a bit of modern jazz and old-time American bluegrass music, and he or she might be a fan of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Of course, it would not be economically advantageous for one rural radio station to program to this one laborer with such eclectic musical tastes. But it may well be the case that other individuals around the globe might share this particular set of musical preferences. So, a radio consortium might be able to offer numerous forms of eclectic programming, one of which might closely suit this laborer and others like him or her. More likely, the laborer would be able to devise a radio station to his or her own liking that samples modern jazz, old-time bluegrass, and the London Philharmonic. Or, the laborer may choose a number of different stations worldwide that appeal to his or her changing tastes.

Coupled with the new technological innovations, radio, like other media, has gone through a phase of development often referred to as E-P-S (elite, popular, segmented). This is the notion that when a medium is new to a culture, it first appeals to a certain elite audience composed of technophiles who enjoy experimenting with cutting-edge technology and those wealthy enough to afford the new "toys." (In the United States during the early 2000s, such a technology was high-definition television.) Once a large enough share of the population is able to purchase the technology, programming is designed to meet a large generalized audience. For radio in the United States, this time period was during the 1930s and 1940s. However, once enough people purchase a technology and listen, read, or watch it, programming becomes more segmented as more and more media producers vie for segments of the population.

Part of the way in which radio programmers are able to specialize their programming is via audience research. In the United States, the primary research tool for media buyers, advertisers, and the radio industry itself has been based on estimates of audience size determined by ratings companies. The most notable rating company for radio has been Arbitron. The ratings giant has been able to estimate audience size by engaging in estimates of size and type of listeners for specific markets. During the 1980s, a rival company, Birch, began supplying more detailed demographic and psychographic information that allowed advertisers to more closely target buyers interested in their products. For example, upscale advertisers could seek only those radio listeners who held two or more major credit cards. Birch eventually folded operations and sold its qualitative Scarborough service to Arbitron.

The trend toward probing audience research will continue in the foreseeable future, particularly as advertisers are able to identify Web-based radio listeners with specific interests (based on the "cookies" sent back to radio Web sites). Tavares wrote,

Audience research, with its increasingly sophisticated measurement techniques and use of demographics and psychographics, will provide more information about the audience. And it will provide that information in ways that become increasingly useful to programmers and beneficial to listeners. It won't stop there either. Audience (plural) research will truly become listener (singular) research. As research techniques advance and increase in reliability, those providing radio (or audio) services will become increasingly sophisticated about the listening habits and needs of individual listeners and will be able to provide programming and services for each listener.

How might that play out in practicality? It is easy to envision that radio programmers could monitor the online habits of those who tune in to their stations online. They could, for example, note the kinds of online purchases made by those listeners. In turn, that information could inform the way in which they program music to both online and broadcast listeners. If, for example, online listeners make repeated purchases from main-line advertisers such as Wal-Mart and Target, then radio sales teams could seek out those advertisers for their radio spots on the air and online.

One benefit of the continued diversification of radio audiences is new life for a variety of radio formats that had almost disappeared when radio was simply intended for large audience segments within one local community. "Old-time" radio, for example, now can survive and perhaps even flourish given a large enough audience spread around the globe. It likely would not be an economically feasible form of programming in many smaller markets, but when those small audience niches are combined from many other markets, the format becomes viable. Similarly, a variety of news and talk formats can now garner large enough audiences to make them economically viable. Previously, the niche for excellence in these areas has been offered by public radio. In the United States, two public radio networks currently vie for similar audiences: National Public Radio, based in Washington, D.C., and Public Radio International, based in St. Paul, Minnesota. Together, the two public networks offer some of the most creative programs currently found in radio. National Public Radio offers the award-winning news programs Morning Edition and All Things Considered. It also distributes Philadelphia's Fresh Air, a daily interview program with host Terry Gross. Public Radio International features its most popular offering, A Prairie Home Companion with host Garrison Keillor.

Keillor began airing his program in full format in 1974. His vision was to resume airing radio in a format he recalled from radio days of his youth. The show consisted of musical acts, skits, and storytelling based on the happenings in a fictitious Minnesota town, Lake Wobegon. The show has been one of public radio's genuine success stories despite its dramatic divergence from the bulk of radio programming found on commercial stations. Still, the new media environment may allow for new and similar creative approaches to radio, even in the context of advertising-supported radio.

Unique formats have traditionally been relegated only to large urban markets that could commercially sustain them. If a market is big enough, then even a small portion of listeners who will tune in to the show may constitute a large enough number to merit advertiser interest. Today, when radio programming can be delivered by satellite or the Internet, niche programming can reach large numbers of listeners worldwide, likely enough to attract national and international advertisers.

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Singapore, Status of Media in

Eddie C.Y. Kuo , Hao Xiaoming , in Encyclopedia of International Media and Communications, 2003

V.A The Beginning of Competition

The first regular radio service in Singapore started in 1936, provided by a private commercial company called the British Malaya Broadcasting Corporation. After independence, Radio–Television Singapore as a branch of the government operated four radio stations. RTS was transformed into the Singapore Broadcasting Corporation in 1980.

As SBC rested on its laurels as the only national radio broadcaster, it was awakened from complacency after an upstart radio station operating from the nearby Indonesian island of Batam sprang up in 1988 and drew away some 70% of SBC's radio listeners. The radio station from Batam, known as Zoo, used the American radio format, playing more music and carrying fewer commercials. SBC reacted very quickly by launching a new radio station called Perfect 10, which played a similar format to Zoo. When the Indonesian company started another English station called Coast, SBC replied in 1990 with new stations in Chinese, English, and Malay. The largest trade union in Singapore, the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC), was also granted a license to run an English station and a Chinese station, thus ending SBC's monopoly in radio broadcasting.

In 1994, SBC was corporatized to become Singapore International Media. Radio services formerly run by SBC were reorganized into the Radio Corporation of Singapore, as one of the various broadcasting enterprises under the Media Corporation of Singapore.

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Radio Broadcasting: Post-1945

Christopher H. Sterling , in Encyclopedia of International Media and Communications, 2003

I.D Program Trends

The key postwar change in programming was the decline of network service and the reappearance of substantial local station program control. As soon as network TV service arrived in 1948 (though coast-to-coast service appeared only in 1951), viewers and advertisers began to decamp for video. There were a few seasons of radio–television network simulcasts (often leaving radio listeners wondering what was happening when studio audiences laughed at sight gags), and then stars and programs left radio for good. The networks began to offer cheaper music and quiz shows, of which Stop the Music was one example of attracting listeners by offering a chance at big money prizes.

Local AM stations, faced with chunks of time once programmed by their network, reverted to playing recorded music with "musical clock" programs that provided a local disk jockey (DJ) with records, weather, news, occasional features, and constant time checks. Affiliates were soon providing more local than network programming—a throwback to the 1930s.

As was the case with their income situation, FM stations were rapidly left behind. Most simply simulcast what their co-owned AM outlet provided. The few independent stations (about 90 of the 700 or so on the air by 1950) programmed classical music, which had a devoted but tiny following, or background music that was all too easy to ignore entirely. Audiences were too small in any case to attract any advertising income.

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Television, Role of: 1945–1975

Christopher H. Sterling , in Encyclopedia of International Media and Communications, 2003

IV.A Spectator Sports

For college and professional sports teams, for example, the inception of regular television service created a huge quandary. Radio had proved its value in building sports audiences, making regional or national heroes of players and even some announcers who came to represent the teams in the minds of radio listeners. Radio, however, rarely took the place of attending a game. But television, which could add the visual likeness of being there, greatly worried sports executives concerned that fans would prefer to stay at home and watch a match on television rather than expending time, effort, and money traveling even to a local playing field.

Television's earliest sports appeal in the 1940s was evidenced in bars and taverns across the nation who put up window signs announcing "We Have TV" to attract those who wanted to watch boxing, wrestling, or professional baseball games before television receiver ownership was widespread (a decade or more later similar signs read "We Have Color TV"). Sports provided an important television program ingredient from the beginning and greatly helped the sale of receivers. Sports matches provided cheap programming without the need for scripts and actors—and television rights initially could be purchased for a song.

Only over time did television become central to all professional and most college sports. Growing audiences attracted advertisers and thus coverage to more teams (professional football, a minor business before television, greatly expanded its role, as epitomized by the televised Super Bowl which first aired in 1967) and more games. With television coverage, teams could attract fans far from the stadium or playing field. Some sports—most especially boxing and football—seemed designed for the small screen. Further, the existing breaks of baseball innings or football quarters lent themselves to television's commercial breaks—until advertiser demand for more exposure turned the tables and television created its own breaks as needed, often delaying games. Car racing built tension as viewers waited for or feared accidents. Hockey offered the same appeal—violence around the corner. Even marginal sports such as tennis, basketball, or even golf became better known thanks to television coverage. The downside was felt by minor league teams where the negative impact of television (which ignored them) was predicted even before 1950. Most disappeared in the absence of their ability to attract television's interest.

Some sports events appeal beyond the usual sports fans. The quadrennial Olympic telecasts (the first in the United States were in 1960 when CBS provided 20 hours from Rome) are the best example, attracting large and diversified audiences for two weeks of intensive nationalistic competition. That television was increasingly important to the Olympic movement (and vice versa) is evident in the rising network fees paid for the rights to televise the games—from less than $400,000 in 1960 to $7.5 million for what became 63 hours of ABC sports and news from the tragic Munich summer games of 1972, to the $25 million ABC would pay for the Montreal games just four years later. For these fees television gained huge audiences and advertiser interest (just as the annual television season was beginning) and the winning athletes achieved instant fame and often financial windfalls.

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Handbook of Media Economics

Steven T. Berry , Joel Waldfogel , in Handbook of Media Economics, 2015

3.3 Advertiser Demand

Audience demand is an essential component of models of revenue, but the translation of audience demand into revenue requires models of advertiser demand.

The simplest approach is to assume that the medium in question is small relative to the advertising market, in which case the media firm is a price taker in the advertising market. In such a case, the price per media consumer might nevertheless vary by type of consumer, as consumers vary in their value to advertisers depending on age, gender, income, and so forth. In some cases, advertisers may care about the racial or ethnic composition of the audience, perhaps because ethnicity is correlated with preferences for different advertised goods.

It might also be true that advertiser demand is downward sloping—that is, that the marginal willingness to purchase an advertisement is declining in the size of the total audience exposed to the ad, or in the total demographics (quantity times demographic share) of the audience. More subtly, advertisers may care about the number of times a given person is exposed to an ad, with a willingness to pay that declines in the degree of repeat exposures to the same person.

Berry and Waldfogel (1999) observe the market-level price of radio advertising as revenue per radio listener. They model advertiser demand as a simple constant-elasticity function of total market listening share, as in

(3.13) ln r t = x t λ 1 − λ 2 ln S t + ν t ,

where xt is a vector of market characteristics and St is the total share listening to radio. The unobservable advertising demand shock ν t is likely correlated with the listening share, since a high level of ad demand will encourage station entry, which in turn leads to high listening. Possible instruments for listening share include the same variables discussed above in the context of nested logit radio demand. These include population and population by demographics.

With richer data, the specification in (3.13) can be extended. Sweeting (2013) models station-level ad prices and includes controls for station format and audience demographics. Jezkiorski, among others, attempts to model prices at the level of a 60-second ad slot. This introduces the "quantity of advertising," at , in addition to the quantity of listeners. In radio, the intensity of advertising presumably drives down listening share so that demand for listening should depend on a possibly endogenous quantity of ads. It will also affect the supply side, discussed below.

Rysman (2004) considers advertiser demand for traditional printed "yellow pages" directories that consist of paid advertisements for various, mostly consumer-oriented, retail and service establishments. Pre-Internet, these were a primary reference for consumers seeking service providers and retail outlets. The two sides of the market are the advertisers, who generate revenue for the directory, and consumer "users" who receive the yellow pages book for free. Advertiser demand presumably increases in the amount of usage and usage presumably increases in the amount of advertising (which increases the information value of the directory). This creates a classic network effect among competing oligopoly firms. Rysman's model features consumers who "single-home" each given search in a single yellow book and features advertisers whose "profit per look" is constant (so that competing directories are neither complements nor substitutes in price). In particular, he derives a Cobb–Douglas directory-level aggregate inverse advertising demand function for directory j in market t of

ln r j t = z j t β + γ ln a j t + α ln q j t + ν j t ,

where r jt is advertising price, a jt is quantity of advertising, and ν jt is an unobservable. Rysman's instrument for usage, q jt , of directory j is the number of households who have recently moved to market t. The instrument for advertising quantity includes cost shifters, such as the local wage. The demographic shifters z jt include population coverage of the directory. (Note that this variable is naturally excluded from Ryman's nested logit model of usage share.)

Fan (2013) follows Rysman in modeling advertiser demand (in column inches) as a function of ad rate (in dollars), rjt , audience size (circulation), qjt , market number of households, Hjt , and an unobservable ν jt ,

(3.14) ln a j t = λ 0 + λ 1 ln H j t + λ 2 ln q j t + λ 3 ln r j t + ν j t .

Again, this equation has two endogenous variables and so requires at least two instruments. The same Waldfogel-style instruments that Fan uses in the estimation of readership (circulation) can be used to estimate (3.14). One interesting question is whether those instruments are rich enough to independently shift both quantity and ad price. Supply-side restrictions, discussed in the next section, may provide further restrictions that aid in the estimation of advertising demand parameters.

In these examples, we see that the estimation of advertiser demand depends in part on the richness of the available data. More complicated models tend to introduce further endogenous variables, increasing the demand on instruments. Luckily, the same exogenous instruments that shift choice sets in demand estimation can often serve as instruments in the advertiser demand equation as well. To the degree that instruments are not rich enough to estimate components of advertiser demand, supply-side restrictions may help improve our estimates. We turn next to that supply side.

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India, Status of Media in

Ammu Joseph , in Encyclopedia of International Media and Communications, 2003

IV.A.1 Coverage and Reach

According to the National Readership Survey 2002, television now reaches nearly 82 million Indian homes, reflecting a growth of 12% since 1999. Almost half the homes with television also have cable and satellite connections (40 million, up from 29 million in 1999, reflecting a 31% growth rate). Television commands a 72% share of the average of 13 hours spent on traditional media (press, television, radio, and the Internet) among urban audiences, although there has apparently been a slight decline in the time spent on these media by urban adults since 1999 (about 7 minutes less per day). Within that, a marginal decline has been noted in the time spent on television in this market (from 85 minutes in 1999 to 82 minutes in 2002).

The National Readership Survey 2002 reports that radio's reach has remained stagnant at 28% of the adult population, marginally more in rural areas (30%) than in urban markets (24%). However, the share of FM radio has increased even though it is a new entrant into the field and broadcasts are still confined to a few cities. Among the 48 million adults who listened to radio in the three months prior to the interviews conducted from January to March 2002, 31% or 15 million now tune in to an FM station, registering an increase of 6% since 2001. The audience of All India Radio's primary station is still higher at 43% of all radio listeners but AIR's commercial and entertainment service, Vividh Bharati, has fallen to third place with the rising popularity of private FM stations, which also focus on entertainment.

According to the AIR Web site, an estimated 111 million radio sets are now spread across 105 million Indian households. The public broadcaster presently has a network of 208 broadcasting centers, including 74 local radio stations, technically covering the entire Indian population (almost 99%) across much of the country (nearly 90%). Its home services include broadcasts in 24 languages and 146 dialects, while its external services cover 26 languages, of which 10 are foreign languages. AIR's news bulletins are centrally produced and transmitted across the country.

Although AIR has 128 FM transmitters and initially leased time slots to private radio companies, it was a slow starter in launching its own FM services. Among the first to launch FM radio services in the mid-1990s, using AIR's FM airwaves, were the radio subsidiaries of print media companies. In 1999 the government issued tenders for the establishment of 150 independent commercial FM stations in a significant step that broke the government's monopoly of radio airwaves. However, FM radio in India is primarily a medium of entertainment, targeting young people with a menu of Indian and Western pop music and chat shows.

Independent community radio, serving the information, communication, and entertainment needs of small communities, is still a distant goal being pursued by a few interested nongovernmental organizations through experimental initiatives. In the last quarter of 2002, the government of India finally indicated its readiness to open up the community radio sector to licensees. But the proposal formulated by the ministry of information and broadcasting suggests that only recognized, established educational institutions would be eligible to apply for licenses to operate FM transmitters of 50 watts power or less. According to the proposal, such stations would not be allowed to broadcast news or current affairs programs or sponsored programs, or to carry advertisements. The existing, NGO-initiated experiments in community radio are unlikely to qualify for licenses under this dispensation.

Doordarshan is one of the largest terrestrial networks in the world, with exclusive sway over terrestrial television in India. Its primary channel, which is bilingual, operates through a network of 1308 terrestrial transmitters that technically cover over 89% of the population. It has 20 other channels, including some that are satellite-based and others that are supported by an additional 107 transmitters. Among these are 11 regional language satellite channels and one international channel. According to the Doordarshan Web site, its 56 program production centers have an output of approximately 1485 hours per week, and its programs in multiple languages are watched by 362 million viewers in homes across the country (see Table IX).

Table IX. Vital Statistics of Doordarshan, India's Public Television Network

Channels 21
Programme Production Centres 56
Transmitters 1308
Programme Output (hours per week) 1485
Transmitters
HPT LPT VLPT Transposer Total
DD-1 184 712 306 19 1308
DD-2 39 56 7 — 119
Others 3 2 — — 5
Satellites and transponders in use
Satellite INSAT-2E INSAT-2DT INSAT-2B, 2C PAS-10 ThalCom
Position 83°E 55.1°E 93.5°E 68.5°E 78.5°E
Channels
National DD-1 National, DD-2 Metro, DD-Sports, DD-News
RLSCs Malayalam, Tamil, Oriya, Bengali, Telugu, Kannada, Marathi, Gujarati, Kashmiri, Assamese, Punjabi
State Networks Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar
International DD-India
Educational DD-Gyandarshan

Source: Doordarshan 2002 at a Glance.

The global coverage of the Gulf war by CNN International in 1991 heralded the era of satellite TV in India. The entry soon thereafter of the Hong Kong-based Satellite Television Asia Region (Star), bringing some news and much entertainment to Indian audiences, began what came to be known as the invasion from the skies that challenged Doordarshan's supremacy over television airwaves. The BBC's 24-hour news and information channel was initially brought to India on the Star network.

A Hindi-language entertainment channel, Zee TV, which also included an element of news and current affairs, is believed to have reinvented the medium for a mass Indian market, highlighting the importance of language and culture in broadcasting. By 1994 Zee had a 65% share of the cable and satellite market, compared to Star's 15%; reading the writing on the wall, Star began broadcasting in both Hindi and English in 1996.

However, as more indigenous channels entered the market and competition intensified, the situation became more diffuse. Satellite channels in regional Indian languages found their own niche, especially in the southern states. Some single-language channels, such as Sun TV in Tamil Nadu and Eenadu TV in Andhra Pradesh, have since launched channels in the languages of contiguous states. It is estimated that over 100 television channels in different languages are currently available in India, although some are confined to certain states or regions, and only a small fraction (estimated at about 10%) of the television sets in use can access more than 12–16 channels.

While the primary fare of most Indian television channels is entertainment, most of them also have regular news bulletins and some current affairs programming. In addition, a number of 24-hour news channels catering specifically to Indian audiences emerged at the national as well as regional levels in the late 1990s. The most prominent at the national level are the bilingual Star News and Zee News, and the primarily Hindi news channel, Aaj Tak.

The satellite revolution of the 1990s was enabled by local cable networks, set up in the 1980s by local entrepreneurs in major cities as an alternative source of entertainment for subscribers in a particular neighborhood. Although the reach of cable networks grew apace, the business remained unorganized and informal until 1995, when Zee set up its own cable company, Siti Cable. In response to the emergence of such corporate cable giants, small operators formed associations hoping to resist the takeover of the business they had pioneered.

Despite the proliferation of satellite channels over the last decade, Doordarshan, with its terrestrial advantage, remains well ahead of its private sector rivals in terms of viewership both nationally and state-wise, in both urban and rural areas.

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Media, Uses of

J. Robinson , D. Davis , in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2001

2.4 Time Displacement

2.4.1 Print

Earliest societies depended on oral traditions in which information and entertainment, and culture generally, were transmitted by word of mouth. While their large gatherings and ceremonies could reach hundreds and in some cases thousands of individuals simultaneously, most communication occurred in face-to-face conversations or small groups. The dawn of 'mass' media is usually associated with the invention of the printing press. Print media posed a severe challenge to oral channels of communication. As print media evolved from the publication of pamphlets, posters, and books through newspapers and journals/magazines, we have little empirical basis for knowing how each subsequent form of print media affected existing communication channels. We do know that print channels were held in high regard and that they conferred status on persons or ideas (Lazarsfeld and Merton 1948). Print media are thought to have played a critical role in the spread of the Protestant Reformation and in promoting egalitarian and libertarian values. Government censorship and regulation of print media became widespread in an effort to curtail their influence.

Based on current research findings of the 'more … more' principle described below, however, we suspect—for simple reasons of the literacy skills involved—that the popularity of older forms of print media such as pamphlets and books made it possible for later media to find audiences. Existing book readers would have been more likely to adapt and spend time reading journals and newspapers than would book nonreaders. Some researchers argue that Protestantism was responsible for the rise of print channels generally because Protestants believed that all individuals should read the Bible on their own. This led them to focus on teaching literacy. Print media were more widespread and influential in Protestant Northern Europe than predominantly Catholic Southern Europe during the early part of the seventeenth century.

2.4.2 Cinema and radio

Early in the twentieth century, movies quickly became a popular way of spending time; and anecdotal reports suggest that weekly moviegoing had become a ritual for most of the US population by the 1920s. The impact of movies was widely discussed, but there are no contemporary reports about whether the movies were frequented more or less by readers of books, magazines, or newspapers—although one might suspect so for the simple economic reason that the more affluent could afford both old and new media. Movies were especially attractive to immigrant populations in large cities because many immigrants were not literate in English.

Much the same could be expected for the early owners of radio equipment in the 1920s. Whether radio listeners chose to go to the movies, or read, less than nonowners again appears largely lost in history. By the 1930s and 1940s, however, radio appears to have been used for at least an hour a day; but it is unclear how much of that listening was performing the 'secondary activity' function that it has become today—rather than the radio serving as the primary focus of attention, as suggested in period photographs of families huddled around the main set in the living room.

2.4.3 Television

Greater insight into the time displacements brought about by TV was provided by several network and non-network studies, which documented notable declines in radio listening, moviegoing, and fiction reading among new TV owners. These were explained as being media activities that were 'functional equivalents' of the content conveyed by these earlier media (Weiss 1969).

However carefully many of these studies were conducted (some employing panel and other longitudinal designs, as in the 'Videotown' study), they were limited by their primary focus on media activities. Using the full-time diary approach and examining a sample of almost 25,000 respondents across 10 societies at varying levels of TV diffusion, Robinson and Godbey (1999) reported how several nonmedia activities were affected by TV as well, with TV owners consistently reporting less time in social interaction with friends and relatives, in hobbies, and in leisure travel. Moreover, nonleisure activities were also affected, such as personal care, garden/pet care and almost 1.5 hours less weekly sleep—activities that do not easily fit into the functional equivalence model. The diaries of TV owners also showed them spending almost four hours more time per week in their own homes and three hours more time with other nuclear family members.

Some of TV's longer-term impacts did not show up in these earliest stages of TV. For example, it took another 10 to 15 years for TV to reduce newspaper reading time, which it has continued to do since the 1960s—primarily it seems because of sophisticated local TV news advisors. Another explanation is that TV's minimal reliance on literacy skills tends to erode over time, and that it took 15 years for literacy skills to erode to the point where more people found it less convenient to read newspapers. In contrast, since the initial impact of TV in the 1950s, time spent on radio listening as a secondary/background activity has increased by almost 50 percent and books, magazines, and movies have also recaptured some of their original lost audiences. There has been a dramatic proliferation of specialty magazines to replace the general interest magazines apparently made obsolete by television. Some researchers argue that these magazines disappeared because advertisers deserted them in favor of TV. In terms of nonmedia activities, Putnam (2000) has argued that TV has been responsible for a loss in time for several 'social capital' activities since the 1960s.

Figure 1 shows the relative declines in primary activity newspaper reading and radio listening times since the 1960s, both standing out as free-time activities that declined during a period in which the free time to use them expanded by about five hours a week. TV time as a secondary activity has also increased by about two hours a week since the 1960s.

A somewhat different perspective on TV's long-term effect on media use is afforded by time series data on media use for the particular purpose of following elections. As shown in Fig. 2, TV rapidly had become the dominant medium for following electoral politics by 1964. Since then each of the other media has suffered declines in political use as TV use has maintained its nearly 90 percent usage level; more detailed data would probably show greater TV use per election follower across time as well. However, the three other media have hardly disappeared from people's media environment and continue to be used as important sources by large segments of the electorate in Fig. 2, such as radio talk shows in the 1990s.

Figure 2. Proportions following each medium. Source: American National Election Studies

What these electoral data also show, however, is that the composition of the audience for these media has changed as well. Newspapers and magazines no longer appeal as much to better educated individuals as they once did; much the same is true for TV political usage. Age differences are also changing, with newspaper and TV political followers becoming increasingly older, while radio political audiences are getting proportionately younger.

At the same time, there are clear tendencies for media political audiences to become more similar to one another. Greater uses of all media for political purposes are reported by more educated respondents, particularly newspapers and magazines. This finding appears to be consistent with the channel repertoire approach since educated respondents likely have more interest in politics and thus develop a larger channel repertoire. Older respondents report slightly more political media use than younger people, and men more than women, and people who use one political medium are more likely to use others as well.

These are patterns for political content, however; and notably different patterns would be found if the content were fashion or rock/country music and not politics. Yet there is still a general tendency for users of newspapers to use other media more (particularly for broad information purposes), bringing us back again to the overriding 'more … more' pattern of media use.

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