Posted on: Friday, March 25, 2005

Nielsen checks what's on dorm TVs

By David Bauder
Associated Press

Classes? What classes?

A study reveals that college students watch an average of three hours, 41 minutes of television each day.

Viewing peaks in the late-night hours for college males, interrupting any cramming for exams, according to a report by Nielsen Media Research, the primary service for measuring TV audiences.

"It was a little more than I expected it to be," said Pat McDonough, Nielsen's senior vice president of planning, policy and analysis.

But it's less, by about an hour, than the amount of time an average American spends watching TV each day, Nielsen said.

College viewing was something of a final frontier for Nielsen. The company has been able to track the TV habits of college-age men and women when they're living at home, but until last fall had no reliable measurement of what students were watching in their dorms, fraternities or sororities, or apartments.

TV networks are eager to see this information. Young people, particularly young men, represent a demographic for which some advertisers will pay a premium.

For college men, the 10 most-watched programs last October were all baseball games, primarily postseason games involving the Boston Red Sox. For college women, it was NBC's "Joey," Nielsen said.

A large number of college students watch TV with roommates and others, meaning they have to negotiate over which programs to tune in, Nielsen said.

By almost 2 to 1, college students watched more shows on cable than on broadcast television. It's much closer among the audience as a whole.

The study found college viewership peaked in September and was at its lowest in December. That's counter to the general trend of TV viewership picking up in the colder months. It may reflect students spending more time studying for exams, or be simply explained by students going home for the holidays, McDonough said.