The effect of viewer behavior on reception and viewing of UHF television

Abstract

The effects of viewer behavior on the reception and viewing of UHF television are explored. By integrating the results from three new studies sponsored by the Federal Communications Commission's UHF Comparability Task Force with previous work it is possible to distinguish between factors that significantly influence UHF viewing and those which do not. The three new studies are: 1) a large public opinion survey by Louis Harris and Associates of 1587 households predicted to receive both UHF and VHF television; 2) measurements of the gain of television receiving systems in 49 households in northern Illinois by the Institute for Telecommunications Sciences (Boulder, CO); and 3) the use of television viewing data collected by The Arbitron Company to study the relationship between UHF television viewing and the type of channel selector. The conclusions reached are: 1) actual UHF reception is significantly poorer than that predicted by the conventional analytical techniques, and the primary cause appears to be inadequate gain in the receiving systems viewers choose to install; 2) actual VHF reception is at least consistent with (if not better than) the conventional predictions; 3) viewers are not biased in their perceptions of UHF reception quality; and 4) the type of channel selector used by a viewer appears to have no impact on the amount of UHF television watched.