Coping with grazing: Prime‐time strategies for accelerated program transitions

Abstract

Strategies to speed up the flow of viewers between prime‐time programs were adopted by the television networks in the early 1990s. This study compared the types and lengths of transitions between time prime‐time programs for the four broadcast networks in two seasons, 1992‐93 and 1993‐94. Results showed that all four networks had increasingly adopted production strategies for program starts, endings, and breaks that accelerated audience flow between programs, and while the proportion of all practices increased over time, the four networks had focused their attention on different parts of the transition process. Results showed that the network in third place and the networks targeting the youngest viewers utilized more of the accelerated program transitions. Transitions intended to increase inherited audiences and discourage channel changing may be another significant factor in structural theories of audience flow.