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TV watching in the new millennium: insights from Europe

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Abstract

In the present paper we empirically investigate the economic reasons why people spend time watching television both for informative and leisure purposes. We consider individual characteristics and country-level features. Particular attention is devoted to the impact of education and economic status on the allocation of time to TV and new media. We use data from the European Social Survey (ESS) Round 5—2010, 2012 and 2014 and from other minor empirical sources.

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Notes

  1. Unfortunately, the latest wave of the ESS Survey (2016) does not provide information as regards TV watching.

  2. Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.

  3. See, Documentation of ESS Post-Stratification Weights, April 2014.

  4. VILLAGE and BIGCITY identify extremes (very large cities and small villages): roughly 30% of the sample lives in towns or small cities.

  5. ESS provides a re-classified measure of family income as declared by the respondent. We further divide this value by the number of family components.

  6. COE-European Audiovisual Observatory 2010–2012–2014

  7. The absolute values of the estimated coefficients do not lend themselves to an meaningful interpretatione, given the heterogeneity of measurement units.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Management, Economics and Quantitative Methods, University of Bergamo, Bergamo, Italy

    Maria Rosa Battaggion & Alessandro Vaglio

  2. ICRIOS Bocconi University, Milan, Italy

    Maria Rosa Battaggion

Authors
  1. Maria Rosa Battaggion
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  2. Alessandro Vaglio
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Correspondence to Maria Rosa Battaggion.

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Appendix

Appendix

Explanatory variables: individual level

AGE

The age of the respondent

SEX

Dummy variable, value 1 for female

ETHNIC_MINORITY

Dummy variable, value 1 for a minority

BIGCITY

Dummy variable, value 1 for individuals living in big cities

VILLAGE

Dummy variable, value 1 for individuals living in a country village

EDUCATION

The years of education

INC_FAMILYPROC

Per capita family income of the rspondent

RETIRED

Dummy variable, value 1 being retired

UNEMPLOYED

Dummy variable, being unemployed in the last week, but looking for job

LTUNEMPLOYED

Dummy variable, being long term unemployed

OCCUP_HIGH

Dummy variable, value 1 if individual is an high-rank manager or an entrepreneur

OCCUP_TECHPROF

Dummy variable, value 1 if individual is a highly manager or an entrepreneur

OCCUP_CLERK

Dummy variable, value 1 if individual is a clerk

OCCUP_BLUECOLLAR 1

Dummy variable, value 1 if individual is a high-skilled bluecollar

OCCUP_BLUECOLLAR 2

Dummy variable, value 1 if individual is a low skilled bluecollar

Explanatory variables: country level

GDPPRO

Per capita GDP in PPP

LIMITFREE

Index of of freedom in media market

TURNOUT

Election tornout

PUBLICAUDIENCE

Share of audience of the public broadcasting system

PAYTVSUBS

Ratio of pay-TV subscribers tothe population

IPTV

Number of families with Internet Protocol TV per 1000 individuals

SMART

Number of families with smart TV per 1000 individuals

ADVINTTVRATIO

Ratio of internet advertising revenues to the broadcasting advertising revenues

ADVNEWSPTVRATIO

Ratio of newspapers advertising revenues to the broadcasting advertising revenues

ONDEMREV

Ratio of revenues from on-demand TV services to GDP

BROADBAND

Share of households with a Broadband connection

PRIZEFICTION

Prix Europa: Number of prizes and special recommendations for TV fictions

PRIZEJOURN

Prix Europa: Number of prizes and special recommendations for documentary, current affairs and IRIS

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Battaggion, M.R., Vaglio, A. TV watching in the new millennium: insights from Europe. J. Ind. Bus. Econ. 47, 645–661 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40812-020-00145-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40812-020-00145-y

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