Ang is struck by the gap between the television industry's desire to 'know' their targeted audience and the perverse behaviour of actual audiences. The industry wants to know more and more about viewers in order to compete and sell programmes to advertisers. New technologies, however, such as cable, video and the VCR, have made audiences elusive, active and unpredictable. Even the People Meter, touted as the perfect electronic measuring device to give the industry complete and immediate knowledge of audiences has proved disappointing. It also shows that audiences are getting harder to pin down - they zip and zap across channels, watch programmes simultaneously, screen out the advertisements, and time shift for their individual convenience.
Contemporary viewers are choosy, critical and cynical about television.
The industry and advertisers are somewhat alarmed about the state of affairs. Narrow the age spread down and it can still be ludicrous. Take a 32 year-old woman. She could be white or black, single or married, working or unemployed, professional or blue collar. And there's lots more.