Conclusion

As with previous viewership surveys, this 2007 Viewership Survey of cable subscribers in the City of Tampa reveals a substantial, knowledgeable and satisfied base of viewers for CTTV, Channel 15. To be sure, there are interesting and useful differences and distinctions to be drawn from a comparison of this survey with those conducted previously, some of which are highlighted in this report. However, it should be remembered that these differences and distinctions take place within the overall context of a community and viewership base which appears to feel that it is being well served by and largely satisfied with CTTV, Channel 15.

Looking back six years, one of the principal observations rising from the 2001 survey was that growth in awareness and viewership of CTTV could be stimulated by embarking on an aggressive and ambitious public education and public relations effort. With awareness of CTTV now just over 62%, reflecting a 25.2% increase over six years, it is clear this effort is well underway and baring substantial fruit. In our experience, any awareness level over 60% for a city of Tampa's size should be considered "excellent."

Also, as shown below, viewership levels appear to have returned to and stabilized in the 35-40% range. As with the CTTV awareness numbers, viewership in this range (approaching 40%) should be considered very good to excellent for a Government Access channel in a city the size of Tampa.

Further, and as was noted in a previous survey report, growth in viewership often lags behind and does not become evident until a material growth in awareness, i.e., as a community becomes more "aware" of a channel, more and more subscribers, over time, migrate to the channel to experience the programming on it. This "continuum of viewership" ranges from subscribers who are unaware and non-viewers of a channel on one end to subscribers who are regular, knowledgeable and supportive viewers on the other end. As such, future measurements will be useful to provide ongoing and comparative tracking of viewership levels.

Not only have awareness and viewership levels seen material increases over previous surveys, but when CTTV viewers watch programming on Channel 15, they do so for substantially longer periods of time than did the viewer respondents in both the 2001 & 2004 surveys. The graph on the following page illustrates.

This is a metric that is useful in determining how interesting and "sticky" the programming is on a particular channel. Clearly, the vast majority of viewers find the CTTV programming of sufficient interest to sit and watch for a measurable period of time and not "click through" the channel or use it as a resting spot to "wait out" commercials on another channel.

Finally, continued information gathering and viewership research should provide valuable guidance as CTTV, Channel 15 expands and refines its programming lineup and services to continue to be relevant to and communicate with more and more residents of this diverse, vibrant community. Future research will be especially valuable in tracking the viewership patterns and levels of satisfaction of two different subsets of subscriber respondents: a) those subscribers who are regular, loyal and satisfied CTTV viewers; and, b) those subscribers who appear to be newly aware that the City of Tampa has a cable television channel - especially those “newly aware” subscribers who are or will become CTTV viewers.
 

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