Communication Channels and Leisure Behavior in the Local Area: Influence of Cable Television

Attitude to cable television. Leisure behavior. Survey of persons in
the area of the cable pilot project Ludwigshafen and in a control area.

Topics: The complete survey is organized in several survey blocks:

1. Oral interview with a member of the household over 18 years old who
just happened to be at home, on household ecology, housing situation
and equipment (household questionnaire)

2. Written survey of all members of the household over 14 years old

3. A survey of parents about the TV habits of their children under 10
years

4. Diary records of all members of the household above 10 years old.

1: Household questionaire: size of residence; attitude to cable
television; decision-making about the cable connection or
non-connection; advantages and disadvantages of a cable connection;
attitude to commercial television and cable television (scale);
television set features and location of the equipment in the household;
times the television is turned on weekdays and weekends; possession of
video recorder; year of purchase of first video recorder; television
station that can be received; guests watching television; common meals
of members of household on working days and weekends; regular dinner
time; room in which dinner is eaten; television during dinner;
possession of durable economic goods and available equipment for
leisure activity; number of parties in the building; local ties; origin
in the country or from a big city; honorary offices; having a yard,
newspapers and magazines subscribed to and regularly purchased; readers
of these newspapers. Interviewer rating: type of building;
characterization of residences; willingness of respondent to cooperate;
presence of third persons during interview and their intervention in
the course of the interview; length of interview; interruption of the
interview; total time spent by interviewer in household.

2: Written survey of the members of the household over 14 years old
about their individual media usage, their leisure behavior, their
attitude to leisure time, as well as media and politics: leisure
orientation; boredom; orientation of leisure activity around the
television program; tiredness in the evening; leisure activities;
satisfaction with local leisure facilities; attitude to technology;
neighborhood contacts; common activities with acquaintances and
friends; size of circle of friends; satisfaction with size of circle of
friends; distance to friends and acquaintances; frequency of guests in
residence and watching television together; satisfaction with
television offering; degree of familiarity of private television
broadcasters; attitude to commercial television; neighbors and friends
with cable connection; frequency of discussions about cable television;
extent to which informed about cable television; costs of cable
connection; significance of television in the framework of family life
(scale); preferred television broadcasts; attitudes to television
advertising; demands on television; significance of the media for local
information; satisfaction with information about place of residence;
preferred sources of information for national political events;
satisfaction with information about political events; assessment of
reliability of information in the individual media; selectively tuning
in television broadcasts; importance of areas of life; left-right
orientation; postmaterialism index; interest in politics and interest
in events at place of residence; commuting times to work; employment in
the civil service; overtime and shift work; club memberships and club
activities; ties to church; party preference; self-assessment of length
of interview, the difficulty and the clarity of the questionnaire;
interest in questionnaire.

3: Mother-child questionnaire: information on watching television by
the child; preferred television broadcasts; presence of parents when
watching television; conversations with the child about television
broadcasts watched; television broadcasts that are harmful for the
child; decision-making about television broadcasts permitted for the
child; disagreements with the child due to selected program or
frequency of watching television; television as reward or punishment
for the child.

Also encoded was: identification of interviewer.

4: Time budget survey over 8 days with 20 standardized leisure time
and media activities for all members of the household over 10 years
old.

The time intervals in the diary are every half-hour.

Three simultaneous activities were recorded.