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Recently, two separate surveys were conducted in Brazil and Colombia, both coming to the same conclusion — Discovery Channel is a favorite network among audiences in both countries.
In Brazil last month, one of the country's top columnists, Patricia Kogut of O Globo (the 3rd largest newspaper in Brazil), conducted her own research with some of the newspaper's readers in order to find out what they considered to be the best documentary channel in the country. 48% of those who responded to the survey named Discovery Channel as the best documentary channel, followed by History Channel (21%), National Geographic (15%) and Animal Planet (9.62%).
To the northwest in Colombia, the Comisión Nacional de Televisión (CNTV) conducted a large-scale consumer television preferences survey. The survey was commissioned by CNTV in order to obtain information regarding the habits of Colombians who watch television and the results were recently revealed to the public. Once again, as was the case in 2008, Discovery Channel was chosen as the favorite cable network in Colombia. Read a transaltion of the survey results publised in one of Colombia's leading newspapers, La Republica (also appearing in or on El Tiempo, El Espectador, Portafolio, Radio W and across other media).
Pay TV Gains on Local Market
The proportion of homes subscribing to pay TV in Colombia reached 55.4%; of these, 45.1% receive the signal through a satellite or cable subscription and 10.3% through communal antennas.
For its part, broadcast television reached 44.6% of the country’s households.
It’s worth pointing out that pay TV has much greater penetration in urban compared to rural areas: 63.3% in urban areas (51.7% through cable or satellite, 11.6% through communal antennas, and 36.7% relying on broadcast signals). In rural areas, pay TV systems have only 11.2% penetration, with 85% of users receiving only broadcast channels.
In terms of content, according to the Gran Encuesta Integrada de Hogares, a household survey carried out by Dane for Colombia’s National Television Commission (CNTV), social strata one through three watch television for entertainment, while higher ones say they look more for news and financial information.
Private channels came in first place in the survey, with 81.1% of the urban total, but the greatest beneficiary was the Discovery Channel, with 19.3% of viewers. It was followed by TNT, Animal Planet, Fox, Discovery Kids, Cartoon Network, Señal Colombia, National Geographic and others.
These results show, on the one hand, that although Colombian television viewers lean more toward local content and especially entertainment, there is a clear trend toward educational and cultural programs. This finding could be an important consideration for aspirants to the country’s third television channel when creating their lineups.
On the other hand, when the cost of service is compared, Cntv Director Juan Andrés Carreño noted that pay TV is more affordable than Internet. “On average, a household could pay 24,600 pesos for pay TV and 58,500 pesos for Internet,” he pointed out.
The survey also revealed a growing trend toward bundling television and Internet service, Carreño noted. Seventy-three percent of households that have Internet get it from a company that also offers television service.
La Republica
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