Determinants of Programme Preferences and Watching Hours of Television: With Special Reference to Gampaha District

Abstract

Although there is a great demand for the television as one of the main recreational options enjoyed by people, its market is lagging behind in value addition to the gross domestic product of the country due to failures in strategic management of television companies. This study seeks to identify determinants that affect people’s preference to watch television and the period of time they spend watching television. Identifying as to why people prefer to watch television and what determined the time period they spend watching television could provide better insights for television companies and other stakeholders to improve their viewer base in the oligopolistic market. This in turn, would help to increase the value addition of the industry through well targeted and relevant programmes and advertisements which are telecast at the most appropriate time. Primary data for the Study has been gathered from four Grama Niladari divisions of the Gampaha Divisional Secretariat in the Western province. Sample was selected using the simple random sampling method and data was collected during the period from February 2015 to April 2015. The sample comprises of 168 households that include 609 individuals. Models for the Study have been derived on individual basis. The binary logistic regression model has been used to identify determinants of programme preferences while the semi log regression model has been used to identify determinants of the number of hours spent watching television. Through the binary logistic regression model, it has been found that the age of the respondents and other factors such as the respondent being a male, married and employed have a significant positive relationship with the demand for knowledge based programmes. Age, marital status and employment status have reported a significant positive relationship with the number of hours spent watching television. Out of the employed respondents, those who spend more than eight hours of their time engaged in work have a strong negative relationship with the number of hours spent watching television. Middle aged and elderly individuals are more interested in programmes that contain news and politics while females are more interested in programmes with soft content such as teledramas and religious programmes when compared with males. “Hiru News” appears to be the most preferred news programme while “Atapattama” telecast in ITN appears to be the most preferred knowledge programme among the respondents. “Satana” telecast in Sirasa TV appears to be the most popular political programme according to the survey. The teledrama “Me Adarayai” telecast in Sirasa TV is the most favorite teledrama among the respondents while the programme called “Hiru Countdown” is recorded as the number one musical programme. Identifying the characteristics of the viewers would be helpful in targeting different segments of the viewers through suitable television programmes and plan economically effective advertising campaigns in the market.