Zapping involves using a VCR to remove advertisements while recording. By turning the VCR off during commercials, the ads are zapped from the videotape. Time shifting lets a person record a program on VCR to watch at a different time. There is no reliable approach to or theory of audience demand for programming. Audience research has primarily been designed to find out how viewers react to what is available, not to find out what viewers might design if they had the chance.
Cable networks provide the range of programming that allows new areas of audience demand to emerge.
Not only does cable run prime-time reruns, movies and syndicated programming, but it also produces original material. In 1993, HBO received praise for producing a movie called And the Band Played On, which was based on journalist Randy Shilts' book about early AIDS research. The broadcast networks turned down the idea because they thought it would be too controversial. As the number of cable channels proliferate, cable networks will generate larger amounts of programming to draw viewers from broadcast networks. Types of Audiences With development of multiple cable channels, advertisers increasingly use television to target audiences through use of demographics and psychographics.