DOI: 10.18712/nsd-nsd0107-v2
title: The National Broadcasting System's User Survey, June 1985

description: This dataset is derived from the “The National Broadcasting System's User Survey, June 1985” that was conducted by Statistics Norway (SSB) on assignment from the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK). The survey from June 1985 was included as a part of Statistics Norway's listener -and viewer surveys for the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation. Statistics Norway conducted from 1967 to 1977 annual general radio and television surveys on behalf of the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK). Several special surveys were conducted in the period 1978 to 1985, and surveys of a more general character were only conducted in 1980 and 1983. From 1985 a new arrangement of three general surveys per year was put to use. The reason for this alteration was the new media situation in the 1980ties that provided opportunities to choose between more and more channels on both radio and television. The most important purpose of the new survey arrangement was to provide data concerning: - Changes in listener and viewer patterns over time - Variations in listener and viewer patterns in different seasons - Use and choice of different channels and program offers in radio and television - How people listen to radio and watch television - Access to radio and television sets and equipment that are used in connection to radio and television apparatuses. In addition to this, the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation wished to ask questions concerning people's opinions about different aspects of Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation program operations and concerning certain programs or program types. The purpose was to conduct surveys that could give grounds for the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporations work in creating an offer of programs that listeners and viewers could benefit from, and that could contribute to illustrate the part radio and television play in people's lives. Three general surveys were conducted in 1985, in February, June and in September/October. This file consists of data from the June survey. NSD does not have access to data from the February survey. A gross sample of about 1500 interviewees was selected. These were interviewed in 7 groups about listener and viewer habits yesterday and the day before yesterday. The net sample amounted to 1136 interviewees. When mapping out time consumption, 24 hours was divided into fixed 10 minutes time intervals. Then activities for each time unit were registered, either it was spent listening to the radio, watching TV or doing other things. As a result, the two days could be put together, and one could let the interviewees be represented with two days in order to study time consumption. The number of units (days) was twice as much as the number of respondents and each person were therefore included two times in this dataset. This was done in order to include the interviewees answer for both days of programs in the same variable. This means that for instance the variable v156 “Hørte på radio 06.05 - KANALKODE” contains information about what the interviewee listened to on the radio at 06.05 o'clock on both days, both yesterday and the day before.