Don't Touch That Dial

ONCE THERE WAS JUST A TV SET. Now THERE ARE VCRs, cable boxes, and remote controls. But contrary to popular opinion, the technological revolution is having little effect on viewing habits.

Television viewers do not go "grazing crazy" when handed a remote-control device. Instead, they profess loyalty to only a few TV stations, reports Douglas A. Ferguson, Ph.D.

And while TV fans take advantage of the variety of cable television, VCRs seems to have no impact at all. "Network executives can continue to wring their hands about cable, but remote controls and VCRs are not much to worry about," says the Bowling Green State University professor.

In a telephone survey of 583 Florida residents, viewers said they regularly watched five channels, with remote-control users reporting faithfulness to a slightly higher number of stations than non-users. Cable owners, on the other hand, confessed to watching about six channels on average, while their non-subscribing neighbors viewed only four-and sometimes fewer if they had no VCR in the house.

The upshot: "Merely having many more channels does not mean the viewer will watch them automatically," Ferguson observes in the Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media (Vol. 36, No. 2).

But the future has a different cast. "Younger people raised on Nintendo are a lot more eager to change channels," says Ferguson. The zap-happy MTV generation may not actually watch more programs, but they'll see different ones. New shows like Grapevine, which includes short shots of people talking directly to the camera about their love lives, already pitch to fast-paced preferences.