ABSTRACT
The 1986–1987 television season marked the first time the A. C. Nielsen company found U.S. weekly television viewing to have declined from the previous year. The decline was even greater when measured by the new peoplemeter system (Kneale, 1988a). Another decline occurred in the 1987–1988 season (Nielsen, 1989) in spite of the fact that Nielsen also found multiple set households up to 59% of all television households, and more television and cable channels than ever available to U.S. television households (“Weekly TV viewing,” 1988); almost 56% of all television households had cable television by early 1989 according to Nielsen (“May penetration,” 1989, p. 45). Although the growth in video options has matured in the United States, it is worth noting that a similar change is now taking place in Europe (Buck, 1988; Durand, 1988; Kavanaugh, 1989; Nayeri, 1988).
