Prime-time Television Programs Research Articles

“What’s Love Got To Do With It?”

“What’s Love Got To Do With It?”

Sexual teens, sexual media: investigating media's influence on adolescent sexuality

Contents: J.D. Brown, J.R. Steele, K. Walsh-Childers, Preface. J.D. Brown, J.R. Steele, K. Walsh-Childers, Introduction and Overview. M.J. Sutton, J.D. Brown, K.M. Wilson, J.D. Klein, Shaking the Tree of Knowledge for Forbidden Fruit: Where Adolescents Learn About Sexuality and Contraception. Part I:Television. K.M. Cope-Farrar, D. Kunkel, Sexual Messages in Teens' Favorite Prime-Time Television Programs. B.S. Greenberg, S.W. Smith, Daytime Talk Shows: Up Close and in Your Face. L.M. Ward, B. Gorvine, A. Cytron-Walker, Would That Really Happen? Adolescents' Perceptions of Sexual Relationships According to Prime-Time Television. L.J. Hofschire, B.S. Greenberg, Media's Impact on Adolescents' Body Dissatisfaction. Part II:Magazines. K. Walsh-Childers, A. Gotthoffer, C.R. Lepre, From Just the Facts to Downright Salacious: Teen's and Women's Magazine Coverage of Sex and Sexual Health. D. Treise, A. Gotthoffer, Stuff You Couldn't Ask Your Parents: Teens Talking About Using Magazines for Sex Information. J. Wray, J.R. Steele, Girls in Print: Figuring out What It Means to Be a Girl. Part III:Movies, Music, the Internet. C.J. Pardun, Romancing the Script: Identifying the Romantic Agenda in Top-Grossing Movies. J.R. Steele, Teens and Movies: Something to Do, Plenty to Learn. J.J. Arnett, The Sounds of Sex: Sex in Teens' Music and Music Videos. S. Stern, Sexual Selves on the World Wide Web: Adolescent Girls' Home Pages as Sites of Sexual Self-Expression.

Strategy Fads and Competitive Convergence: An Empirical Test for Herd Behavior in Prime‐Time Television Programming

The economics literature contains many theoretical analyses of imitation and differentiation strategies but relatively few empirical studies of these topics. This paper aims to address that shortcoming. I analyze program introductions by television networks and then compare the payoffs to imitative and differentiated introductions. The analysis indicates that the networks imitate each other when introducing new programs and that, on average, imitative introductions underperform differentiated introductions. These results are consistent with theoretical models of herd behavior but are difficult to explain using standard models of spatial competition or the possibility of omitted variable bias.

An analysis of prediction error for new prime-time television programmes: a comparative study between the USA and Korea

This study investigates possible factors in prediction error for audience share for new prime-time television programmes in the USA and Korea. While previous studies have focused on the factors affecting the size of a programme's actual audience, little attention has been paid to the accuracy of audience share prediction. A total of 193 new prime-time TV programmes from 1994 to 1997 for the USA and from 1998 to 2001 for Korea were examined. Advertising industry forecasters' predicted audience share, and actual share data were accumulated from Broadcasting & Cable and Weekly Nielsen Reports. Findings show that the ‘Programme Type’, ‘Returning Lead-Ins’ and ‘Returning Lead-Outs’ worked as significant factors for estimating error in audience share in the USA, and ‘Programme Type’ and ‘Programme Length’ played major roles in forecasting error in Korea. The degrees of relationship with forecasting error are consistent with previous studies' findings. Similarities and dissimilarities in prediction error in both countries were found and are discussed in this study.

Prime-Time Television: Assessing Violence During the Most Popular Viewing Hours

This Study was designed to assess the prevalence and context of violence in prime-time television programming using a random, representative sample of 23 broadcast, independent, and cable channels. Results showed that, regardless of the times of day, viewers are likely to encounter violence in roughly 2 out of 3 programs when they view television. Using social cognitive theory to frame our analysis, we also identified specific channel types and genres that feature potentially harmful depictions of violence during prime time. Specifically, broadcast network and basic cable are the most problematic channel types, and reality television is the most problematic genre. Results are summarized highlight the day parts, channels, and genres that are most likely to contribute to negative effects from prime-time viewing.

Prime-Time Television: Assessing Violence During the Most Popular Viewing Hours

This Study was designed to assess the prevalence and context of violence in prime-time television programming using a random, representative sample of 23 broadcast, independent, and cable channels. Results showed that, regardless of the times of day, viewers are likely to encounter violence in roughly 2 out of 3 programs when they view television. Using social cognitive theory to frame our analysis, we also identified specific channel types and genres that feature potentially harmful depictions of violence during prime time. Specifically, broadcast network and basic cable are the most problematic channel types, and reality television is the most problematic genre. Results are summarized highlight the day parts, channels, and genres that are most likely to contribute to negative effects from prime-time viewing.

Influence of Prime-Time Television Programming on Perceptions of the Federal Government

This investigation extends the current body of research on trust in government by examining the effect of the use of nonnews media. Specifically, the study examines the influence of various genres of network television prime-time programming on public perceptions of the federal government. Telephone surveys conducted in March 1999 with a probability sample of 294 adults in a Midwestern community indicate that controlling for sociodemographic influences, people's viewing of specific genres of prime-time television programming exerts a modest, and mixed, influence on perceptions of the federal government.

Nutrition Messages on Prime-Time Television Programs

The content of nutrition-related information (NRI) was analyzed in 17.5 hours of top-ranked prime-time network television programs. The findings indicate that NRI-containing scenes account for approximately 20% of program time. In most scenes, the NRI is not related directly to the plot. The characters in the scenes tend to be slender white men. Foods are shown and talked about much more frequently than they are consumed. Slightly less than half of the scenes portray non-recommended nutrition behaviors. A food pyramid constructed using food references in the scenes bears little resemblance to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Guide Pyramid.

The Unpredictable Audience: An Exploratory Analysis of Forecasting Error for New Prime-Time Network Television Programs

This article investigates possible determinants of forecasting error for new prime-time network television programs. Each season, advertising industry forecasters attempt to predict the audience shares for new fall programs. Advertising expenditures are made on the basis of these projections, though historically these forecasts have been very inaccurate. Through an integration of audience behavior theory and decision—making theory, this paper attempts to identify factors that explain the magnitude of uncertainty, and hence the magnitude of forecasting error, surrounding the predictions for new programs. The results indicate that the presence of a returning network lead-in or lead-out significantly reduces the amount of forecasting error. In addition, the results indicate that forecasting error has increased significantly over time. The overall explanatory power of the model suggests that content and audience characteristics must be incorporated into the analytical framework as well.

The Depiction of Exercise on Prime-Time Television

Overweight and obesity are associated with the amount of time one spends watching television. Specifically, the more television one watches, the more likely it is that he or she will he overweight and physically inactive. The purpose of this study was to examine the depiction of exercise on prime-time television. Two weeks of prime-time television (8:00-11:00 p.m.) programming on the four major networks were analyzed during winter 1997. Frequency of exercise scenes, demographic characteristics of exercisers, types and locations of exercise, and length of exercise scenes were investigated. Results showed that an average of 0.39 scenes of exercise were displayed each hour. Exercise scenes were most frequently displayed on Fridays and Saturdays in dramas and sitcoms. Individuals most commonly depicted as exercisers were males, whites, and adults. Sports and games were the most common type of exercise depicted whereas gyms and clubs were the most common exercise locations. Virtually all scenes lasted less than 1 minute in length. Implications of these findings are discussed as they relate to possible influences of the media on youth's perceptions of exercise. Recommendations for promoting a positive message of exercise to youth via television are offered.

A Content Analysis of Health-Related Information on Television: The Simpsons

Television is a persuasive, powerful, and pervasive medium for disseminating information on a plethora of topics, including health and nutrition. In fact, television is consistently ranked by Americans as their primary source of nutrition information. In addition, it is widely acknowledged that events portrayed on TV influence eating and health attitudes and behaviors. To gain an understanding of the influence of television on health attitudes and behaviors, it is important to investigate the health content of television programming. The purpose of this study was to content analyze the health-related information conveyed by The Simpsons television show. This show was selected because it is consistently listed as one of the top 20 prime-time television programs in terms of viewing audience and because a pilot test indicated this show has many embedded nutrition and health messages. A total of 63 episodes (21%), 7 from each of 9 television seasons, were videotaped and content analyzed using the instrument developed for this study. The results indicate that health-related messages occur an average of 12 times per episode, with each message being an average of 32 seconds in length. Nearly two-thirds of the health-related messages were incidental to the episode; that is, the message did not directly pertain to the plot of the episode. Data analysis indicated that messages focused mostly on nutrition, alcohol use, smoking, and body image (57%, 20%, 11%, and 5%, respectively). Only 20% of the messages that focused on nutrition were positive (i.e., practices recommended by health care professionals), while 27,48, and 5 percent were negative, neutral, or ambiguous, respectively. The overwhelming majority of messages focusing on smoking and alcohol consumption were negative. A food pyramid constructed based on the frequency foods were verbalized, shown, and eaten in The Simpsons shares little similarity to the USDA pyramid. The foods most commonly mentioned verbally by characters were beer, entree type foods, and sweets. These same foods were the most frequently shown. Foods that were consumed most often were beer, entree type foods, coffee, sandwiches, and baked desserts. Foods were eaten as snacks, rather than meals, nearly 60% of the time. Homer, an overweight character, made the most verbal references to food and was portrayed eating food more often and in greater quantities than any other character. This study indicates that many health-related messages on The Simpsons run counter to those of promoted by health professionals. The next step is to determine how health-related messages on television affect viewers’ health and nutrition attitudes and behavior.

Food and Nutrition Messages Communicated through Prime-Time Television

The authors use manifest and latent content analyses to identify the nutrient profile of foods appearing on prime-time television and implied messages about these foods communicated through characters and settings. The sample consists of 276 prime-time television programs airing over a two-week period on four major network channels. Results indicate that (1) beverages are the most prevalently portrayed item on television; (2) four of the five most frequently portrayed food categories are in the four major food groups; (3) candy and salty snacks are far less prevalent than previous studies indicate; (4) the most frequently portrayed foods in meals have average amounts of fat and slightly lower than average sugars, calories, and sodium; (5) snack foods are significantly less nutritious than foods portrayed in meals; and (6) characters with different demographic characteristics are portrayed with significantly different foods and send different messages regarding the taste and appeal of food.

Talking about sex: Common themes about sexuality in the prime-time television programs children and adolescents view most

Although concern is often raised about television's role as a “teacher” about sexuality, little is known about the specific content of sexual messages on the programs children and adolescents view most. To explore this issue, a content analysis was conducted of the twelve prime-time television programs most preferred by children and adolescents. For three episodes of each program, all interactions between the characters were examined for the presence of verbal statements about sexual issues. Relevant statements extracted were coded using a list of 17 categories reflecting scripts about sexuality common in our culture. Findings indicated that discussions about sexuality were quite common on these programs. On average, 29% of the interactions on an individual episode contained verbal references to sexual issues, with the level surpassing 50% for some episodes. There were more messages about the male sexual role than about the female sexual role, and more that emphasized a recreational orientation toward sex than a procreational orientation. The most frequently occurring types of messages were those in which sexual relations were depicted as a competition, in which men commented on women's bodies and physical appearance, and in which masculinity was equated with being sexual. The importance of physical attractiveness as a key asset was emphasized for and by both sexes. Results are discussed concerning adolescents' potential uses of this input, and concerning directions for further study.

Television Viewing and Public Perceptions of Attorneys

This investigation examines the way prime-time network television programming depicts attorneys, and the influence of these images on the public's perceptions of attorneys. In addition, the study examines some of the theoretical and methodological controversies identified with the cultivation explanation of the way television shapes perceptions of social reality. The results reveal that network prime-time television programming depictions of attorneys affect public perceptions of attorneys, particularly in terms of front region behaviors. The results involving attorneys’back region behaviors are mixed. In addition, the results indicate that content-specific viewing is a more reliable predictor than total viewing or select viewer sociodemographic variables of the public's tendency to perceive attorneys in the same way they are portrayed in prime-time television programming.

Severely dependent alcohol abusers may be vulnerable to alcohol cues in television programs.

The self-reported ability of 96 alcohol abusers to resist the urge to drink heavily was assessed after they viewed a videotape of a popular prime time television program complete with advertisements. Different versions of the videotape were used to evaluate the effects of a television program with and without alcohol scenes as crossed with the effects of three different types of commercials (i.e., beer, nonalcoholic beverages, food). Before and after viewing the videotape, subjects, who were led to believe that they were participating in two separate and unrelated sets of experimental procedures, completed several drinking questionnaires. Responses to one of the questionnaires provided an unobtrusive measure of self-reported ability to resist the urge to drink heavily. Results indicated that alcohol cues in a television program affected some alcohol abusers' perceived ability to resist the urge to drink heavily. In particular, those with higher alcohol dependence scores showed a decrease in confidence after viewing a television program with alcohol cues compared to subjects who watched the same program but without the alcohol scenes. The clinical implications of these findings are discussed. Until further research is forthcoming, given the artificial nature of the study setting, the results of this study must be viewed with some caution.

In search of a discourse on aging: the elderly on television.

This article analyzes the images of aging presented in five of the prime-time television programs of 1989 most watched by the elderly: Murder, She Wrote, The Golden Girls, Matlock, Jake and the Fatman, and In the Heat of the Night, all of which have central elderly characters. An examination of the title sequences reveals that earlier television stereotypes of the elderly "as more comical, stubborn, eccentric, and foolish than other characters" have been replaced by more positive stereotypes of them as powerful, affluent, healthy, active, admired, and sexy.

Effect of television advertising of alcohol on alcohol consumption and intentions to drive

The alcohol consumption of 120 male and female college students was measured as they viewed a 90-min videotape of popular prime-time television programmes. Independent measures were the sex of the student, their drinker classification (light or moderate-heavy) and the number of alcohol advertisements (0, 6, 12) shown during the screening of the television programmes. Dependent measures were the number of drinks consumed, and the intentions of students to drive a motor vehicle after viewing the videotaped programmes. As predicted, males consumed more alcohol than females, and moderate-heavy drinkers consumed more than light drinkers. Male and female students who viewed six alcohol advertisements consumed more alcohol than students shown no alcohol advertisements or 12 alcohol advertisements. Analysis of intentions to drive after viewing the programmes revealed that the number of drinks consumed was not a significant covariate of driving intentions. Rather light drinkers of both sexes were less likely to intend to drive than moderate-heavy drinkers. Males exposed to alcohol advertisements were less likely to intend to drive than males who did not view alcohol advertisements. Different levels of exposure to alcohol advertisements did not influence the driving intentions of college females.

Exploring the links between personality and media preferences

Personality characteristics (extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism) and media preferences (prime-time television programs, contemporary movies, and popular music) were assessed for 119 male undergraduates using a questionnaire. The findings revealed considerable correspondence between the respondents' predominant personality characteristics and their media content preferences. For example, respondents scoring high on neuroticism expressed a strong preference for information/news television programs and “downbeat” music while tending to avoid more lighthearted comedy and action/adventure fare. Those scoring high on psychoticism, on the other hand, evidenced significantly less interest in comedy offerings but displayed a strong preference for graphically violent horror movies. Further, media preference profiles that successfully discriminated between different levels of neuroticism and psychoticism were identified. Some implications of these findings for future research on media selection and use effects are discussed.

Portrayals of alcohol on prime-time television.

Alcohol portrayals were analyzed for a 3-week composite sample of prime-time fictional television programs aired in the fall of 1986. Approximately 64% of the 195 episodes contained one or more appearances of alcohol. Alcohol was ingested on 50% of all programs. Overall, there were 8.1 alcohol drinking acts per hour. Movies made-for-television had the highest rate of drinking acts per hour (10.0) followed by situation comedies (9.2) and then theatrical movies (7.4) and dramas (7.4). Within the category of dramas, evening soap operas stand out with 13.3 acts per hour. Drinking and nondrinking characters were compared on a number of attributes relevant to role modeling. Regularly appearing characters were more likely to drink than nonregular characters. Drinking characters also tended to be of high status, largely being white, upper-class professionals. A time trend analysis showed a regular increase in alcohol on television from 1976 to 1984, reaching 10.2 acts in 1984. After 1984 the trend appears to reverse.

Interpersonal interaction on television: Family conflict and jealousy on primetime

Primetime television programs were analyzed for the presence of interpersonal predicaments, specifically family conflict and situations involving jealousy, envy, and rivalry. The portrayal of these situations was evaluated according to relevant prosocial and antisocial criteria. Findings suggest that the predicaments are common in television relationships and predominantly are depicted in a prosocial manner across situation comedies, family dramas, and nighttime soaps. Gender differences, however, are prevalent within the televised interaction patterns. In addition, the frequency of these predicaments varies across program type.