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wandering eyes
Blame it on the partying. Viewers less tuned in.
By Gabriel Spitzer
Getting viewers in front of the TV for the Super Bowl is one thing. Getting their noses out of their lagers and pointed at the tube is another.
While the Super Bowl continues to draw huge ratings, viewers had their eyes on the screen just 64 percent of the time during Super Bowl XXXVI, according to a new "flash study" from Knowledge Networks/Statistical Research Inc. based on a survey of 669 Super Bowl viewers.
"Not all ratings are created equal," says David Tice, director of client service at KN/SRI and author of the report.
By way of comparison, earlier KN/SRI studies show that the average primetime viewer has his or her eyes on the screen 72 percent of the time.
According to the studies, viewers pay closest attention to talk shows, with their eyes on the screen 83 percent of the time, while, by genre, viewers of sports and comedies were the least attentive, watching the screen just 69 percent of the time.
All the primetime genres had more attentive viewers than this year’s Super Bowl.
"It doesn’t mean you’re not getting value in the Super Bowl; the audience is so much greater. But it’s still interesting that the attentiveness is less during the game," Tice says.
KN/SRI found that viewers’ interest increased as the game progressed, peaking in the dramatic fourth quarter. During the first and second quarters, viewers’ eyes were on the TV just 60 percent of the time. In the third quarter the figure inched up to 61 percent.
Finally in the fourth quarter, viewers were watching the game 69 percent of the time—just up to the attentiveness level for ordinary primetime sports.
The culprit is easy to identify.
"Clearly, it’s the party atmosphere," says Tice. "And people also watch in groups. You put more than one person in a room and the attention to the programming goes down."
Throughout the Super Bowl, viewers said in overwhelming numbers that they were engaged in other activities.
This "multitasking" decreased as the game went on, with the action getting more interesting and with people’s appetites perhaps becoming sated.
Fully 90 percent of KN/SRI’s survey respondents said they were doing something else while they watched the game in the first quarter. By the fourth quarter that number was down to 76 percent.
The most popular activities were eating, talking (in person as opposed to by phone), cooking and doing chores.
Ten percent said they napped during the third quarter, and 5 percent were curled up with a book in front of the TV in the second quarter.
KN/SRI also asked viewers to offer opinions about Super Bowl advertisers. The most marked change from past years was that just 29 percent of respondents said they "strongly agreed" that companies that advertise in the Super Bowl are "industry leaders." That’s down from 50 percent in a 1993 survey.
"You could go back to the dot.com Super Bowl a few years ago. Those companies bought the ad time to introduce themselves to the world, as opposed to a large product or a brand that people already knew," Tice says.
"Nobody had ever heard of them before, and then they’re gone months later. It puts a little bit of a tarnish on companies that people don’t recognize that advertise in the Super Bowl.
"Certainly that doesn’t change their opinion of Budweiser or one of these well-known brands, but with the smaller companies, that’s contributed to it."
On the other hand, 45 percent of respondents said they were at least as interested or more interested in the ads than they were in the game itself.
Fifty-two percent said they "strongly agreed" that people pay more attention to the commercials during the Super Bowl than they do to commercials during other special-event programming.
Twenty percent "strongly agreed" that Super Bowl advertisers have "a commitment to quality and excellence," and 37 percent "strongly agreed" that people notice who advertises during the Super Bowl.
This latest KN/SRI "flash study" is the first of its kind to study a particular event. Studies of the winter Olympics and the Daytona 500 will follow in coming weeks.
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Super Bowl Involvement |
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| 1st quarter | 2nd quarter | 3rd quarter | 4th quarter | Total game |
Avg. prime- time viewer* |
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| "Eyes on" program (percent of minutes) | 60 | 60 | 61 | 69 | 64 | 72 |
| Other activities while in audience (percent of audience) | 90 | 88 | 84 | 76 | n/a | 72 |
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Source: KN/SRI flash study, based on
survey of 669 viewers; margin of error +/- 3 percent. *Source: KN/SRI’s How People Use Television, 1995 |
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Super Bowl
Viewers’ |
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| 1st quarter |
2nd quarter |
3rd quarter |
4th quarter |
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| No other activities | 10 | 13 | 16 | 25 |
| Eating | 43 | 33 | 22 | 20 |
| Talking (in person) | 38 | 37 | 35 | 34 |
| Cooking | 19 | 8 | 5 | 2 |
| Chores | 12 | 11 | 10 | 6 |
| Talking (on phone) | 9 | 6 | 8 | 8 |
| Child care | 8 | 8 | 8 | 5 |
| Playing with kids | 8 | 8 | 7 | 4 |
| Dozing/napping | 6 | 6 | 10 | 8 |
| Reading | 4 | 5 | 4 | 3 |
| Internet use | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 |
| Paperwork/bills | 3 | 2 | 1 | 2 |
| Personal care | 3 | 4 | 6 | 3 |
| Computer | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 |
| Radio | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Exercising | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Handwork/crafts | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Other not listed | 19 | 21 | 21 | 17 |
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Source: KN/SRI flash study, based on
survey of 669 viewers; margin of error +/- 3 percent. Data given in
percent of survey sample; respondents could give more than one activity.
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February 12, 2002 © 2002 Media Life
-Gabriel Spitzer is a staff writer for Media Life.
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