CAN TELEVISION CHANNELS PREFERENCE BE MODELED?

Abstract

In Turkish media market, more than 20 national TV channels are in permanent competition. In the changing broadcast environment, in order to reveal audience attitudes towards TV channels, channel preference, channel image, perceived quality of programs, and the relationships among these latent constructs are crucial. A satisfaction survey was conducted across TV audiences over 26 national television channels. Structural Equation Modeling is very popular tool and widely used in marketing models and customer relationship management. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) is a hybrid technique that encompasses aspects of confirmatory factor analysis, path analysis and regression, which can be considered as special cases of SEM. Advantages of SEM compared to other statistical methods include more flexible assumptions, use of confirmatory factor analysis to build measurement model that reduces effect of measurement error by having multiple indicators per latent variable, the ability to estimate predictive relationships among pure latent variables that are uncontaminated by measurement error, the desirability of testing models overall rather than coefficients individually, and the ability of modeling error terms. In this paper, after building the measurement model for the latent variables of audiences' channel preference, channel (brand) image, perceived program quality, the relationships among these constructs are examined in the Turkish TV channels market. 29 percent of TV channel preference can be accounted for a general factor representing channel image, perceived program quality, therefore it is possible to model TV channel preference as brand preference.