Choice of Television Programmes by Russian TV Audience: Influence of its Socio-Demographic Characteristics

Transforming reality of Russian television explained by the fragmentation and outflow of its audience due to technology development and expansion of available leisure activities raises the following question: who is a consumer of a modern television product? The purpose of the study is to determine the socio-demographic characteristics of the audience that influence the choice of TV programmes of the Russian federal TV channels. The results showed that the socio-demographic characteristics of the TV audience do not influence the choice of a particular type of programme, but they do matter for the choice of a TV channel. The viewer as a carrier of a certain social status generates loyalty to a TV channel. In other words, we assume that the interests of the TV audience are explained by the theory of social identity. However, it should be noted that the analysis of the generalist TV channels revealed the homogeneity of its audience. It means that we cannot predict what TV channel or what type of programme an “average” TV viewer will choose. Weak ability of TV audience to distinguish TV channels from one another allows us to make the assumption that the choice of TV programmes within that group can be explained by the rational theory. Though, this hypothesis needs to be tested.