TV Nation. Americans spend more time with television each day than with the
four other major media combined, according to a study by The Media Center and
the Television Bureau of Advertising. Radio comes in as the second most utilized
medium, followed by the Internet, newspapers and magazines. The phone survey
of 1,003 adults revealed that the average adult spends 253 minutes per day watching
TV, 128 minutes listening to the radio, 45 minutes online, 30 minutes reading
the paper and 19 minutes checking out magazines. Men spend more time than women
with all media except magazines. (TVB, 212/486-1111, http://www.tvb.org)
Media Multi-Tasking. Here's the big BUT...TV watchers and radio listeners don't
necessarily give these chosen media their full attention. A questionnaire issued
to 8,000 consumers by the research firm Erdos & Morgan shows that 73 percent
of Americans tend to read a magazine and watch TV at the same time, and 48 percent
read magazines and listen to the radio simultaneously. Interestingly, 95 percent
of respondents said they give the Internet their undivided attention when they're
online. But only 54 percent of network TV viewers said the same about television.
(212/685-9393, http://www.erdosmorgan.com)
Golden Gates? The San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News and other newspapers scored high marks for quality in a recent media report card issued by a Bay Area watchdog
group. But other news organizations weren't so lucky. Three local TV stations (KRON Channel 4, KPIX Channel 5 and KGO Channel 7) suffered scores of D+.
The journalism ethics project "Grade the News," sponsored by San Jose public
television station KTEH and the Gerbode Foundation, asked journalism veterans
to evaluate news stories from various print and broadcast outlets on the basis
on newsworthiness, fairness, context, local relevance and enterprise. The project's
advisory board of 22 journalism professors and former reporters analyzed more
than 800 randomly selected stories from October to January. News organizations
targeted by the study, it seems, were also randomly selected. The San Francisco
Examiner was not critiqued. (http://www.gradethenews.org)