世論 What Japan Thinks

As if Japanese television wasn’t mindless enough (there are good shows, but even the good shows are cheap time-fillers), nearly half of the respondents to iShare’s survey into Twitter and television thought the two make a fun mix.

Demographics

Between the 9th and 15th of February 2010 516 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 57.2% of the sample were male, 30.4% in their twenties, 33.7% in their thirties, and 35.9% in their forties.

Even worse, about two in five fancied Twittering with the people on the box. I’ve seen a couple of late-night programmes that feature the people in the studio checking emails for topics, and it’s incredibly boring just watching the top of someone’s head as they mutter at a monitor trying to summarise a message.

Research results

Q1: Have you ever seen a Twitterer’s Tweet? (Sample size=516)

	All	Male N=295	Female N=221
Yes, often	11.0%	11.2%	10.9%
Yes, sometimes	20.7%	21.4%	19.9%
No, never	68.2%	67.5%	69.2%

Q2: How often do you watch television? (Sample size=516)

	All	Male N=295	Female N=221
Often	31.6%	30.2%	33.5%
Occassionally	29.8%	27.8%	32.6%
Not really	24.6%	27.8%	20.4%
Not at all	14.0%	14.2%	13.6%

Q3: On the 2nd of November 2009 Hit Contents Research Labs in conjunction with a Television Tokyo business program, conducted a trial where the people on the show interacted in real time over Twitter with the viewers regarding the content of the program. Would you like to participate in such an intercourse with a television program? (Sample size=516)

	All	Male N=295	Female N=221
Want to participate regardless of the show	2.5%	2.0%	3.2%
Want to participate on a show I like	15.1%	16.6%	13.1%
Want to participate with people I like	23.1%	20.0%	27.1%
Don’t want to participate at all	59.3%	61.4%	56.6%

More frequent Twitter viewers from Q1 were more keen to participate.

Q4: Regardless of whether it is Twitter or other methods, do you think it would be fun if the number of programs where viewers could interact in real time increased? (Sample size=516)

	All	Male N=295	Female N=221
Yes, really fun	7.9%	7.5%	8.6%
Perhaps fun	39.5%	38.6%	40.7%
No, not particularly fun	52.5%	53.9%	50.7%

Again, the more frequent Twitter viewers thought it sounded more fun than others.