CTV ranks as Canadians’ most popular TV channel in 2005 TVQ survey

CTV Inc. is the first conventional network to be named Canada’s top TV service in terms of viewer satisfaction, according to the latest edition of TV Quality Report, a national audience study examining Canadian’s attitudes toward television. In the past, specialty channels Discovery and The Learning Channel (TLC) topped the survey, now in its fourth year. "This year knocked everyone off the pedestal," says Barry Kiefl, president of research company Canadian Media Research Inc., which oversees the study. "CTV’s lineup of both American shows and Canadian shows like Corner Gas and Degrassi have really swung things around. CTV has also been very strong when it comes to local news, and that spills over to a positive attitude for the rest of the network." Kiefl says an over-the-air TV network reaching the top spot in terms of satisfaction is one of the most surprising findings in the latest survey. He tells Canadian Communications Reports that another interesting trend is the doubling of interest in personal video recorder-type applications. "We asked people if they would be interested in being able to play back a program instantaneously on their TV sets, which is one of the features of a PVR. The portion of people who said they strongly agreed this was a feature they would like reached 26% from 11% ." While CHUM fared well in the survey, satisfaction with the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. is falling. The recent strike at the CBC appears to have had a negative effect on the public’s satisfaction of the public broadcaster, according to Kiefl. "It has held its own in terms of national news and having the best Canadian programs, but it fell off being the most trusted source of news...and its performance in local news has declined substantially." According to Kiefl, CHUM Ltd.’s rebranding of its TV channels under the A-Channel moniker was successful based on feedback given in the survey. "In previous surveys, the A-Channels registered low since they were received only by people in select cities and a few satellite subscribers," he notes. "But even though the survey was done months after the rebranding of the NewRO channels, A-Channel performed exceptionally well, particularly in terms of local news." In terms of Canadian programming, Kiefl says that Hockey Night In Canada, the CBC National News, and CTV National News are among the most popular Canadian shows. The survey also polled Canadians’ satisfaction with the slew of digital TV channels that began launching in September 2001, but Kiefl prefers not to talk about that part of the survey for accuracy reasons. "Even if people are subscribing to them, they aren’t necessarily watching them," he notes, adding that "awareness levels, after three years of being substantially below that of conventional or analog specialty TV channels, seem to have boosted." The survey asked respondents if they’d be interested in purchasing a high-definition (HD) television set for $1,500. Those not at all likely to buy an HD set at that price shrank to 53% from 70% four years ago. "The resistance is still there, but it has come down dramatically, and the prices are starting to come down," he points out. About 7% of respondents indicated they already had an HDTV set in the 2005 survey, up from 1% four years ago. Fieldwork for the survey was done in October and November 2005 by Compquest, a subsidiary of BBM. The 2005 survey involved a sample of 1,614 anglophone respondents aged 18-plus with the margin of statistical error for a sample this size being +/-2.5%. The 19-page survey was mailed to former BBM TV survey respondents.

CTV ranks as Canadians’ most popular TV channel in 2005 TVQ survey

News | 01/12/2006 5:00 am EST

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