Who Are Your Market’s Non-TV Viewers?

Our previous essay (Use the 80/20 Rule to Attack Television) showed how, by using Scarborough, you can determine what percent of your market is consuming the bulk of television. The example we 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.