Dictionary of Marketing Terms: audience flow
audience flow
- gain or loss of the audience during a broadcast program through turning on or off the television or through changing channels.
- measurement of the traffic behavior of the television household audience or the radio audience as reported by the rating and measurement services. Every program has an audience flow that indicates where the audience came from before the program and where they are going after the program. There are three audience options: (a) the listening or viewing audience who came from a preceding program on a competing broadcast station, (b) the audience who came from a preceding program on the same station, and (c) the audience who turned on their radios or televisions for a specific program. At the conclusion of a program these audience options are reversed, becoming (a) the audience who will turn off their sets, (b) the audience who will remain to watch or listen to the next program on the same station, and (c) the audience who will switch to another station. Audience flow data are important to the advertiser whose message is positioned in the time period between two shows. The fact that both shows have a high audience rating is not sufficient to assure that the message will be seen or heard. It is also important to know if both programs share the same audience.
