Project Report on

MEDIA VIEWING HABITS OF THE YOUTH

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Across the globe shape of mass media is changing rapidly. Ways of communication,
sharing and sending messages are seeing rapid changes due to the advent of new
technology. A convergence is being seen in media, telecom and internet. Today’s average
college graduates have spent less than 5,000 hours of their lives reading, over 10,000
hours playing video games, and an incredible 20,000 hours viewing television within the
first 20 years of their lives. These readily available technological advancements from a
young age create different experiences, which lead to different brain structures than
previous generations that did not have these technological advancements. Advertisers
producing commercials may find it advisable to address these groups and their unique
media viewing habits. While India is the third largest cable television market in the
world, the penetration level of pay TV is still low, which promises a huge untapped
potential for growth. Even though Television faces a tough challenge from Internet still
television is the media on which people spend most time. Television media today due to
this receives the maximum share of advertisement budget and has the maximum
visibility. It has become part of everyone life and maximum number of people cannot
imagine a life without television. After saying its also important to mention that every
age group has different viewing habits as their likes and dislikes are different. Hence I
decided to explore the viewing habits of television media of the youth between 20 to
25.For my research methodology, I have used the Questionnaire to analyze the viewer’s
preferences for respective channels, the kind of shows they like, at what time they like
watching these shows and soo on. I prepared a qualitative questionnaire to get insights of
youth viewing habits of television media. This helped us to analyze the preferences &
timings during which males & females prefer watching T.V

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 TABLE OF CONTENT
TOPIC PAGE NO.

INTRODUCTION …

• BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT OF THE STUDY ...

• HISTORY OF INDIAN TELEVISION

…

• CURRENT SITUATION OF MEDIA BUYING INDUSTRY

…

• TAM (TELEVISION AUDIENCE MEASUREMENT)

...

MEDIA INDUSTRY
• INTRODUCTION ...
• TELEVISION SEGMENT ...
• INDIAN PRINT MEDIA ...
• FILM SEGMENT ...
• RADIO SEGEMENT …

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY …
• LITERATURE REVIEW …
• OBJECTIVE OF STUDY …
• MOTIVATION OF RESEARCH …
• TYPE OF RESEARCH …
• SAMPLE DESIGN …
o SAMPLE UNIT
o SAMPLE SIZE
o SAMPLE SELECTION
• DATA COLLECTION TOOLS …
o PRIMARY DATA
o SECONDARY DATA
• LIMITATIONS AND CHALLENGES WHILE UNDER GOING THE
RESEARCH …

ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

• ANALYSIS OF PRIMARAY DATA …

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RECOMMENDATIONS & SUGGESTIONS …

BIBLIOGRAPHY
ANNEXURE

INTRODUCTION
BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT OF THE STUDY
Rapid technological development and the immersion of technology into the lives of
today’s consumers have created a digital divide between generations. Most students
entering our colleges and universities today are younger than the microcomputer, are
more comfortable working on a keyboard than writing in a spiral notebook, and are
happier reading from a computer screen than from paper in hand. It is important to note
that these technologies such as cable television, the Internet, laptop computers, and
mobile devices were not always readily available for previous generations. Due to these
technological advancements being ever-present in our lives one may assume differences
exist between those whom have grown up immersed in the technologies and those whom
have not been born into this technological immersion. . Today’s average college
graduates have spent less than 5,000 hours of their lives reading, over 10,000 hours
playing video games, and an incredible 20,000 hours viewing television within the first
20 years of their lives. These readily available technological advancements from a young
age create different experiences, which lead to different brain structures than previous
generations that did not have these technological advancements. Different groups of
consumers have various television commercial media viewing and use habits. . The
Youth have logged an incredible 20,000 hours of watching television within the first 20
years of their lives. How they are viewing television as well as their viewing habits may
be different then the other consumer groups. Advertisers producing commercials may
find it advisable to address these groups and their unique media viewing habits. Their
viewing habits of commercials or perhaps avoidance habits of commercials through other
technological advancements such as the DVR, changing the channel, or muting the
television or computer also represent issues that Advertisers should consider in adjusting
their strategies to reach these markets. Similarly what a person in a between 20 to 25 may

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like will be different from what people in other age group do..Television is one of the
most common electrical appliances in our home and as such almost all individual are
exposed to it at some point of time. It’s popularly believed that television viewing for
prolonged period has influenced moral, social, intellectual, ethical, racial & personality
development of individuals. Television viewing is proven to have both positive as well as
negative influence on individual. Prolonged exposure to violent programs has proven to
have negative impact on children and young adults. With so aspects related to television
viewing, I have felt the need to understand television viewing habits’ of the youth
between 20 to 25

HISTORY OF INDIAN TELEVISION

Starting with 41 sets in 1962 and one channel Indian television has come a long way.
When Television first came to India it was named the National Television Network of
India. The first telecast started on September 15, 1959 in New Delhi. After 13 years,
second television station was established in Mumbai in 1972. For several years the
transmission was in black & white. Television industry got the necessary boost in the
eighties when color TV was introduced during the 1982 Asian Games.
Indian small screen programming started off in the early 1980s. At that time there was
only one national channel Doordarshan. The Ramayana and Mahabharat was the first
major television series produced. This serial notched up the world record in viewer ship
numbers for a single program. In the late 1980s more people started to own television
sets. Television programming had reached saturation in spite of the fact that there was
only one channel. So, the government opened up another channel which had part national
programming and part regional. This channel was known as DD 2 later DD Metro. Both
channels were broadcast terrestrially.The central government launched a series of
economic and social reforms in 1991, under the new policies the government allowed
private and foreign broadcasters to engage in limited operations in India. In 1992 five
new channels belonging to the Hong Kong based STAR TV gave Indians a fresh breath
of life. Zee TV was the first private owned Indian channel to broadcast over cable. A few
years later CNN, Discovery Channel, National Geographic Channel made its foray into
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India.. Regional channels flourished along with a multitude of Hindi channels and a few
English channels. By 2001-2003, other international channels such as HBO, History
Channel, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, VH1, Disney and Toon Disney came into
foray. In 2003 news channels started to boom.
CURRENT SCENARIO OF INDIAN TELEVISION INDUSTRY
The television industry in India is currently at its prime, contributing the largest share in
the total media and entertainment industry. While India is the third largest cable
television market in the world, the penetration level of pay TV is still low, which
promises a huge untapped potential for growth.
According to the study by FICCI and KPMG, the television industry, which is currently
valued at about US$ 4.63 billion will expand by 14.5 percent between 2009 and 2013.
Digital distribution platforms such as direct-to-home (DTH) are transforming the
industry. Direct-to-Home segment is gearing up for a new phase of TV viewing with
digital video recorders (DVRs) or personal video recorders that will free consumers from
having to watch television at broadcaster-ordained timetables.
Mobile TV- where content will stream in on mobile phones – which is currently at a
nascent stage is poised to grow big with the advent of 3G, according to experts. This can
lead to the growth of many business opportunities in the media and entertainment sector.
And according to ABI Research, the mobile TV market worldwide is expected to attract
over 50 crore viewers in the next five years.
Considering that video is the most popular medium of entertainment, it will not be
limited to mobile phones but will be expanded to in-car television and personal media
players among others, according to experts.
Viewership across various segments is increasing and marketers are launching new
channels to meet this growing demand. Turner and Warner Bros Entertainment,
Hollywood's leading studio have launched WB, a new Warner-branded channel in India
that will showcase blockbuster motion pictures and acclaimed television series.
According to a report jointly published by the Federation of Indian Chambers of
Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and KPMG, the media and entertainment industry in
India is likely to grow 12.5 per cent per annum over the next five years and touch US$
20.09 billion by 2013.

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TAM [Television Audience Measurement]
A joint venture company between AC Nielsen & Kantar Media Research/ IMRB, TAM
Media Research is the TV Viewership analysis firm of India. Besides measuring TV
Viewership, TAM also monitors Advertising Expenditure through its division AdEx
India. It exists in the PR Monitoring space through another division, Eikona PR Monitor
The viewership cell runs what is one of the largest Peoplemeter TV Panels in the World
with Approx 30,000 sample individuals representing all the Class-I towns (towns with
population more than 100,000) polled every week for their Viewership habits! This
division measures television Viewership of audiences for the 300-plus TV stations
operating in India. TAM is often criticised for its poor sample size, its Television Rating
Points (TRP) system and much else. Still, the industry continues to subscribe to TAM
data.

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 MEDIA
Medium of sending information is media. When medium is technology that carries
messages to large number of people it is called mass media. Mass media includes radio,
television, books, magazine, newspaper, movies and computer network.
Across the globe shape of mass media is changing rapidly. Ways of communication,
sharing and sending messages are seeing rapid changes due to the advent of new
technology. A convergence is being seen in media, telecom and internet. Player operating
in the entire three segments is in better position to cash the opportunity from the rapidly
growing mass media market. Strong growth in the mobile music industry is the best
example of the convergence trend Indian telecom, media and internet.

SCALE OF MASS MEDIA MARKET:

There are 38-mn internet subscribers in India, which is 32nd, largest in the world.
There are 110-mn FM radio listeners in India.
India has 200-mn readers of newspaper and magazines.
There are 296-mn mobile customers in India.
India has 440-mn television viewers.

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KEY DRIVERS OF INDIAN MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT:

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 SHARE OF ADVERTISEMENT IN DIFFERENT MEDIUM:
MEDIUM 2008

TV 40.7
PRESS 46.9
RADIO 3.2
CINEMA 0.7
OUTDOOR 6.8
INTERNET 1.7

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GROWTH RATE OF ADVERTISEMENT REVENUE IN DIFFERENT
MEDIUM:

TELEVISION SEGMENT:

PROJECTED SIZE OF INDIAN TELEVISION INDUSTRY:

Figure in INR billion

FACTS:
Indian TV channel broadcast 15.7-mn advertisement every year, which totals to 362-mn

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seconds of TV advertisement every year.India currently has over 400 channels.TV
viewership has declined by 5% since 2001.TV broadcasters are expected to go hike in
advertisement rate this year by 16-18%.

INDIAN PRINT MEDIA:

More than 220-mn readers of newspaper. English paper and magazine constitutes 10% of
total base. A newspaper account for 90% and 10% is magazine share. Leading newspaper
in India.Newspapers have used their brand strength to successfully establish their own
web sites.

Figure is not latest are old

READERSHIP (MILLIONS)
VERNACULAR
DAINIK JAGRAN 21.2
DAINIK BHASKAR 21
EENADU 13.8
LOKMAT 10.9
AMAR UJJALA 10.8
HINDUSTAN 10.4
DINAKARAN 9.6
RAJASTHAN PATRIKA 9.4
ENGLISH
TIMES OF INDIA 7.4
THE HINDU 4.1
HINDUSTAN TIMES 3.9

Key factors to be watched: Rising news print cost Advertisement revenue Circulation
revenue

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Diversification:
Print media companies are diversifying into allied business in order to de-risk the
business.Jagran has ventured into event management business HT media has launched
job portal and has entered into high end magazine and catalogue printing

RADIO SEGMENT

Indian Radio segment of mass media is going to experience robust growth in coming
years. Indian radio industry has grown rapidly from 45 radio station in 2006 to 185 radio
station now. TRAI has submitted its recommendation for phase 3 license to the
government.

The key recommendations are:

News and current affair on FM radio. Increase in FDI/FIIlimit to 26% from 20% for news
radio channel and 49% to non news radio channel. Allowing additional channel in same
city to existing players. Change in ownership permitted after three years of operation.
Network of FM radio program across the radio network. Auto renewal of radio licenses.

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We feel radio segment in India is at nascent stage, an exponential growth in the market
share as well as revenue could be seen. The market is very huge; with changing
demography this area of mass media has immense potential.

Key area to watch:

Govt regulation. Licensing process. Innovation. Talented radio jockey.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

LITERATURE REVIEW
I have looked through research papers and other studies than have been conducted in
fields allied to my topic and found that research has been conducted in Media viewing
habits of people in general not particularly related to television and a comparison has

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been made between of age group of people less than 30 and above the age of 30 .Also
went through studies on advertising and brand promotion which are directly linked to my
research
OBJECTIVE OF STUDY
The objectives of the research project are
• Patterns of TV Viewing of the youth between the age group of 20 to 25.

• Secondary objective is to understand their behavior during ad-breaks

MOTIVATION OF RESEARCH
• Being a project for my partial fulfillment of my MMS degree I was motivated to
finish this project to the best of my ability.

• My interest in the field of Media particularly in Television was a motivation

factor towards this research.

TYPE OF RESEARCH

My research is DESCRIPTIVE RESEARCH because it tries to identify

characteristics of observed phenomenon and explore possible correlations among
phenomenon. Here in this research the phenomenon would be audience behavior
patterns, and viewer preferences.

SAMPLE DESIGN

SAMPLE UNIT
The sample population was a selection of individuals of varied age groups
(between 20 to 25). The area covered was the Mumbai and suburban areas.

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 SAMPLE SIZE
The sample size selected was 25 respondents. This was due to the time and
resource constraint faced during the project.

SAMPLE SELECTION
Respondents were selected on random basis but the respondents had to satisfy the
following criteria:
• Above the age of 20 and below 25

DATA COLLECTION TOOLS

PRIMARY DATA
• Primary data was collected through Interview method and Focus Group
Discussion. 20 respondents were selected at random and interviewed based on
questionnaire which was prepared before hand and 2 groups of 5 people each
were selected for Focus Group Discussion. Their insights were observed and
noted down

SECONDARY DATA
• Secondary Data was collected from websites, research material available
on related topic and TAM data.

LIMITATIONS AND CHALLENGES WHILE UNDER GOING THE RESEARCH

• Television viewing patterns vary immensely across different cross

sections of the society. Therefore my sample population would probably not
contain enough variety of the audience.
• Time constrain to complete the project was also another limitation faced
during the research.

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 • There were some qualitative questions that needed explaining hence some
respondents needed assistance thus slowing down the process of data collection.
• Limited access to data available in archives

“ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION”

DATA ANALYSIS
In order to understand why people believe what they believe which is the basic
purpose of a qualitative research , I decided to conduct 20 interviews based on a
questionnaire which contained 10 question which I considered were very valuable to

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understand youth viewing habits on television. I Have noted down my inferences and
observation below each question.

Q1.) What is your favourite pastime in a day?

Even though Television faces a tough challenge from Internet still television is the media
on which people spend most time. Therefore an Advertisement on the idiot box still has
more reach and impact than any other medium. That’s the main reason that television
gets the maximum share from the advertisement budgets followed by the print media. It
is very interesting to notice that the youth spends more time on net compared to print.
Radio is heard mostly during travelling and considering that the youth does spend lots of
time daily for travelling. Some people agreed that they like playing games but that was
not a huge percentage

Q2.) Do you like watching television?

Unanimous answer for this question was that everyone likes watching television. This
shows the importance and the role that television plays in a youth’s life.

Q3.) In a day for how many hours do you watch television?

In a day a youth on an average spends around 1 to 3 hours watching television under the
age group of 20 to 25. However I noticed that females watch television more than males.
Some extreme cases that I observed watch television for more that 5 to 6 hrs daily.

Q4.) You tune in to TV to watch......

Majority of the youth tune in to television to surf through channels, however there are
large portion of the sample that has some specific shows that they like watching. There
are not many people who tune into television to watch their favourite show mainly
because they don’t have a fixed schedule of watching television.

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Q.5) What channels do you like watching on television?
This research is pity in sync with likes of males and females in totality compared to my
target group when it came to sports and General entertainment channel. Sports channels
are very popular among males and GEC among females. The proportion of females
watching sports and males watching GEC and is very less. Although preference for music
channels is common among both of them which gets the 2nd spot for both. Channels like
MTV and Channel V are among their favourite. Movie channels take the 3rd place
followed by Lifestyle channels which at the 4th place which has gained importance in the
recent years. Niche channel such as discovery is gaining importance among them and few
of them agreed to watch them regularly News and the Kids channels are the least
preferred among the youth.

Q6.) When do you watch television?

It was noticed that majority of people within the age group watch television between 9 in
the evening to 1 in the night but there is an interesting trend what was noticed was that
there are some portion of viewer in the time frame from 6 to 9 as well due to their
working night shifts. Maximum people stated that they watch television religiously on
morning between 10 to 1 on their holidays mainly Sundays and Saturdays. It was
interesting to note that females rather watch television between 6 to 10 in the evening and
males watch after 10pm to 1am .

Q7.) When do you prefer to watch television?

It can be interpreted that the majority of the population in the age group of 20 to 25
prefers to watch TV in the late evenings and night. But it also noticed that a lot of people
are forced viewer during prime time and would like to watch shows of their choice but
are not able to do that due to family pressure. Some proportion of the female population
would prefer to watch TV during the afternoon from 12 to 4 pm as well. Hence, other

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than the evening prime time, attention has to be given to the afternoon slot as well.
Merely, filling it up with repeat telecast of popular shows won’t help in capturing the
audience or earning advertisement revenues.

Q8.) Which of the following type of programmes do you like the most?
Preferred programs for females are drama which takes the 1st sport followed by reality
and comedy. The preferred genre of programs for females is well represented in the
different Hindi Entertainment channels. Males’ preferred programs are sports reality and
comedy. Comedy seems to be very popular among the youth at Number 4whereas reality
and sports take the top 2 positions overall among the youth. Drama comes in 3rd positions
while crime and Religious/Mythological programs taking the last positions respectively.
In order to tap into newer markets, these channels need to diversify from its present genre
and bid for sporting events, much like Sony did with the Indian Premier League to
represent sports adequately. Reality shows are in for the youth and shows such as
Roadies, Big Boss and Fear factor khatro ke Kiladhi are increasing popularity every year.

Q9.) What do you generally do during commercial breaks?

These results help us understand the behavioural patterns during advertisement breaks,
this is necessary to come out with innovations in advertising and placements of
advertisements during breaks so as to grab maximum attention.
Majority surfs through channels during advertisement breaks this speaks out why new
innovations like advertising simultaneously with content, creating roadblocks etc are
being practiced. Roadblock strategy literally means creating roadblocks. This is done by
buying advertisement slots on parallel news channels in the same time band or during
same advertisement breaks so that even if the target audience shuffles through other
channels he will still encounter the same advertisement

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Q10.) Which channels you prefer the most between Entertainment, Information &
Infotainment?
Majority of the youth like entertainment channel the most that’s what they believe the
primary objective of television is whereas there is increasing trend in watching
informational channels among the youth. Discover and National geographic channel are
very popular. People seemed very indifferent to the concept of infotainment channel and
would rather not want to mixed things up. Showed the least preference for it.

FOCUS GROUP DISCUSSION

In order to understand why people believe what they believe which is the basic
purpose of a qualitative research, I decided to conduct 2 focused group discussion. The
1st topic that I choose to conduct FGD was Advertising on television media and 2nd being

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Television. Both are in sync with my research of understanding television viewing habits
of the youth.
Topic 1- TELEVISION
I choose 5 of my friends randomly 5 th July 09 at my Gym in Mumbai suburbs only
making sure that all of them are in the age group 20 to 25 and conducted my Focus group
discussion. I asked them to sit down patiently and discuss for 15 minutes on the topic. I
followed the principal of not interrupting in between and allowed them to go in the flow.
There were few important as well as interesting things that came out of it which i shall
mention in my observation and inference
Observation and inference
 Forced viewer during prime time most of the time if they are at home and manage
to get the remote only after 10pm and eventually they end up watching till 1pm

 Sports and music is preferred over general entertainment channel

(Unanimously all of the agreed that daily soaps are no worth watching)

 They believe people should spend more time watching information than
entertainment channel

 Would like to spend less time on television

Topic 2- ADVERTISING ON TELEVISION MEDIA

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 I choose 5 people in my colony to conduct my 2 nd group discussion. It was conducted
on 12july 2009 at 7.30 in the evening in Mumbai suburbs. The reason of me to choose
this topic was advertising being the most important source of revenue and people have no
choice but to watch them as they watch their shows and movies on television. It was
imperative for me to understand advertisement viewing habits while I try to understand
television viewing habits under my Primary research. I was curious to know whether they
enjoy watching them or are they looking for ways to avoid them, there were some
interesting thoughts to notice in this Group Discussion
Observations and inference
 Unanimously all would surf the channel during commercial breaks

 They recall few advertisement due to Brand ambassador and the jingle

(Very high frequency all forces them to change the channel)

 Advertisement when content is on

(3 of them wouldn’t mind to have advertisement when content is on while 2 of

them heavily objected to the idea)

 Would want a advertisement blocking technology on television like internet Pop-

up blocker.

 Would like to record their favourite shows when they are out working as well as
to save time watching commercials

 They like to complete some work or make a call during long breaks.

 Great care should be taken to make sure that the in-content advertising stays
within un-irritable limits

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 “RECOMMENDATIONS & SUGGESTIONS”

Television has always been a very powerful medium of communication and it stands till
today in spite of challenges from the internet. But because of the multi-utility of the
internet people are spending more and more time on the internet and moving away from
the television. Therefore according to me the faster IPtv technology is made available in
large scale the better it is for survival of television advertising Several households in
India stick to the rule of having only one television set at home so that at least once a day,
during dinner that is, the whole family sits together Apart from just the numbers it is also
the cross-section of different age groups that is covered in this time slot that matters to
the advertiser. For example a family watching television over dinner which might be
buying a car soon would end up discussing a particular car on the spur of its
advertisement. This would be immensely beneficial for the brand. Roadblock strategy is
essential especially during hours/time slots when people are surfing through news
channels looking for a summary of the day’s news. Basically “roadblock” strategy
literally means creating roadblocks. This is done by buying advertisement slots on
parallel news channels in the same time band or during same advertisement breaks so that
even if the target audience shuffles through other channels he will still encounter the
same advertisement. The youth does have a different viewing habits as well as preference
for shows which should be given due importance.

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Bibliography

• TAMINDIA.Com
• AGENCYFAQS.COM
• SHARETIPSINFO.COM
• LIVEMINT.com
• EXCHANGE4MEDIA.Com

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Annexure

Questionnaire

1.) What is your favourite pastime in a day?

2.) Do you like watching television?

3.) In a day for how many hours do you watch television?

4.) You tune in to TV to watch......

5.) What channels do you like watching on television?

6.) Do you have a fixed Schedule of watching television?

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7.) When do you watch television?

8.) When do you prefer to watch television?

9.) Which of the following type of programmes do you like the most

10.) What do you generally do during commercial breaks?

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