What’s on and who’s Watching? Combining People-Meter Data and Subtitle Data to Explore Television Exposure to Political News

Understanding television viewing behavior is highly relevant, as it remains an important source of political news for many. Nowadays, viewers can choose between a growing diversity of formats covering political news, varying from traditional news broadcasts to late-night talk shows and satire. Yet, we have little to no information about the specific political content provided by television programs; and much less how this can be connected to viewing behavior and audience characteristics (political interest, ideology). Moving forward, using unique Dutch audience-meter data (3,672 viewers from 1,761 different households) from July 2017 to July 2018, we explore <i>who</i> is exposed to <i>which (political) topic</i> in <i>what type of television program</i>. We use automated content analysis to analyze the subtitles of television programs (<i>N</i> = 21,480). Our results indicate that situational factors, such as lead-in and lead-out effects affect news exposure. We also found that political interest does not only shape the volume but also the composition of audiences’ political information diets. Results show that higher political interest was associated with television audiences receiving a greater proportion of their news from public affairs and opinion programs. There does not appear to be any difference in patterns for political ideology; similar proportions of each type of program make up the information diets for both left and right viewers.