How the U.S. Watches Cable

By: Matt Carmichael Published: April 16, 2012

In this week’s Ad Age we looked at which network TV shows have the most skewed audiences in the segments we’ve been tracking through the American Consumer Project. For those who haven’t been following (which you can do here), we’ve partnered with the Patchwork Nation to layer a ton of data through what is a demographic-segmentation tool with geo-targeting built in. These segments are the result of a cluster of analysis and tend to have similar socio-economic and demographic characteristics, despite not being in the contiguous “regions” we’re used to dealing with.

The following is the cable counterpart to that map. It’s based on a sizable household survey from Experian Simmons, which did a custom cut of the data for us. As we said in the network map, these are the shows that each segment is most biased toward watching. For example, the college student- and professor-heavy areas called “Campus and Careers” are far more likely to watch “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.” These shows, therefore, can represent a cost-conscious way to target certain demographics. The more advertisers know about the particular qualities of an audience, the better choices they can make about which programs to support and the creative to target them with.

Top Cable TV Shows by County