Daytime TV viewers - who are they?

26 May 2011 | 0 Comments | Consumer Segments , Direct Response TV , Media Strategy , TV Advertising

We are asked many times by clients and other partners, who watches daytime and off peak TV. Isn’t it just stay at homes mums and the unemployed? The reason for this thinking is that if you work, you can’t be at home watching daytime TV or late night for that matter.

We have decided to answer this question through a series of articles which start to paint a picture of daytime and late night TV viewers and why this particular viewing profile is valuable to almost any advertiser. Let’s call them OPVs (off peak viewers)

In order to dig deeper and understand if they really are all the same or all different, we began by undertaking a research study using Roy Morgan Single Source.

We have also considered the real make up of off peak TV, as it is not all just weekday but consist of Monday to Friday weekday, late night and weekend day time. We have looked at breakfast viewing, morning viewing, afternoon viewing, late night viewing and of course weekends.

According to Roy Morgan Research, the answer is a resounding "No", it is not just stay at home mums and the unemployed that are OPVs. The reality seems to be that there are a lot of high value consumers watching off peak TV, and this is driven very much by their lifestyle. Health professionals are a good example of high value consumers who are 38% more likely to be found watching day time TV than most people - because so many of them are shift workers, and their average income is 30% higher than the average Australian income. More on this in the next article.

But even if off peak viewing was all just stay at mums, we should not ignore the real value of stay at home mums, many of whom make the household purchase decisions on everything from groceries, to financial products, cars and everything else.

While these groups do make up a large part of off peak viewers, many working people, whose very work choice is driven by shift work (such as high value health professionals) watch daytime TV. And business professionals start the day with breakfast TV such as Sunrise or Today.

The reality is that the OPVs and daytime TV viewing audience in general are much more diverse than the expected, as you will see in this series of articles.

Stay at home mums, who are the subject of this article are a high value consumer group for many marketers and for good reason;

•     More likely to have a high household income
•     More likely to be stable and at the same address for 3 to 5 years - and they’re ready to spend
•     Consider themselves big spenders and born to shop

Daytime TV has been a staple of stay at home mums for a long time. Soaps like Days of Our Lives have counted on them to have nothing to do but watch TV – perhaps it was true in the ‘70s. But today’s busy and active and high value “soccer mums” will tell you a very different story.

Many researchers take a cursory view of “daytime TV” viewing as well as all OPVs and this approach does suggest that stay at home mums watch lots of daytime TV, as they are 30% more likely to be found in front of the box than the average person – but then they are at home. Right?

The fact is, all mums are not created equal and taking a more detailed approach to exploring their viewing habits tells a different story. Starting the day with breakfast TV, mothers with children are less likely to have time to watch TV as they are running around getting everybody ready for the day – unless of course the mum in question has children over the age of 12 who can take care of themselves, so they can take a minute to watch Sunrise or Today. Younger kids need to be managed and you are less likely to find mums with kids under 12 watching breakfast TV, in fact they are 32% less likely to be there.

The Roy Morgan research also highlighted an interesting insight - the number of kids in the household determined mums viewing habits. Mums with 1 or 2 children were 24% more likely to have time to watch breakfast TV than mums with 3 or more children; so much for the Brady Bunch were everybody helped out mum.   

Once the day starts, and kids are off to school, the picture changes and mums can relax and watch TV, right?  The reality is that mums with kids under 5 now need a break and are 30% more likely to catch up on their favourite show - but mums with older kids just don’t have time with so much else to do and they are therefore less likely to be found in front of the box (at this time).

Mothers with children are called “soccer mums” or “mum’s taxi” for a reason when it comes to weekends; as mum’s taxi is busy driving the kids to dance classes, music lessons, soccer, and all points in between. Weekends maybe the time for some of us to kick back, but not for mums. In fact they are 35% less likely to be found in front of the TV during the day on weekends, leave that to the boys – but that’s another story

While this research may not be a real eye opener for many, it does point out the need for a more strategic approach when using television to communicate with stay at home mums, or grocery buyers as marketers like to call them, because doing the same old thing may not be working for you any more as today’s mothers become more selective in the time they can spend relaxing in front of the TV.

Lest we forget, stay at home mums have kids and husbands who they make purchase decisions for almost every day of the week, so your TV offer and TV strategy needs to be right. The research shows these mums are almost twice as likely to respond to a TV offer and buy your product or service as the rest of us.  

*Insights for this article from Roy Morgan Research