An Audience Flow Model of Television Viewing Choice

A model for the prediction and explanation of individual television viewing choice is presented, incorporating considerations of utility, audience flow, and audience segmentation. The proposed model provides a quantifiably explicit theoretical explanation of television viewing choice, and its validation on large-sample network viewing data provides a baseline degree of accuracy against which the performance of future television viewing models may be compared. Of direct relevance to advertising agencies and the television networks is the suitability of the model for estimating the comparative impact of alternative programs on the audience size and composition of competing programs in the immediate and subsequent time slots.