What We Really Do During Commercials

Contrary to longstanding received wisdom, the large majority of viewers of live television do not leave the room, nor do they change the channel, when the TV program they are watching goes to commercial.

This is according to new, specific findings from the Video Consumer Mapping (VCM) study sponsored by the Council for Research Excellence (CRE), a group of senior research professionals from throughout the media and advertising industries dedicated to advancing the knowledge and practice of audience measurement methodology. The VCM study was conducted throughout 2008 by researchers from Ball State University and Sequent Partners. The CRE says its $3.5 million project was the first ever to involve the in-person, computer-assisted observation of the media consumption habits of 376 adults. All told, the VCM study — the largest and most extensive observational study of media usage ever conducted, according to CRE — generated data covering more than three-quarters of a million minutes or a total of 752 observed days.

• TV advertising and program promotions reach 85% of adults daily; viewers typically see 26 advertising or promotional breaks daily, at an average length of 2 minutes and 46 seconds per break.
• The frequency of channel-changing and /or changing rooms is very similar in the few minutes before a commercial break, during the commercial break and in the few minutes after the commercial break.