ABSTRACT
In expanding television environments, viewers are confronted with an abundance of channels to compose their television fare. It is up to the viewers to decide with which programs they spend their time in front of the set, and which programs they choose to ignore. While planned choices aided by program guides exist, and habitual use is still important, many viewers use the remote control to inform themselves about the current options and to eventually choose one (Heeter & Greenberg, 1988a). Other motivations for channel changes may be to avoid less liked content, e.g., advertising, and to watch multiple shows at a time (Heeter, 1988; Walker & Bellamy, 1991; see also Fahr & Böcking in this volume). Such behaviors can be summarized as on-line selective strategies-selections that are made by changing channels with the remote control. On-line selective strategies are investigated on a micro level if the main interest of research lies in explaining individual variations in television selections. However, the same data basis-individual-level data on channel changes-may inform macro level investigations if the goal of the analysis is to trace aggregate fluctuations in the size and composition of television audiences. For example, aggregate level research has been done regarding the overlap between audiences of different shows and time slots (e.g., Barwise & Ehrenberg, 1988; Cooper, 1993; Webster, 1985). This line of research is particularly useful in applied audience research to build smooth transitions between shows or from shows to commercials and back in order to keep as many viewers as possible and manage the “audience flow” (Adams, 1993; Eastman, Newton, Riggs, & Neal-Lunsford, 1997; Eastman & Newton, 1995). These aggregate (or macro) level approaches use television units as a basis of analysis-a show, a time slot, a genre, etc., and observe audiences movements. An individual (or micro) level perspective, which is the main concern of this chapter, seeks to explain television selections with individual factors (ones that vary across individuals), often by making use of the viewers’ subjective interpretations of their actions, intentions, motivations and mental processes. However, to complete the picture of individual on-line selections, the influence of external factors (e.g., television content) will be briefly
summarized as well even if it usually belongs to aggregate level research. After all, on-line selections are the result of an interaction between television content and the viewer, and factors from both sides need to be considered for complete explanations. This chapter summarizes research about on-line television selections. First, measurement issues of investigating channel changes will be discussed and some descriptive results will be presented. Then, internal and external factors for channel changes will be delineated and research on each of these will be presented. Finally, process-oriented explanations for channel changes will be synthesized and discussed.
