KIVZ-CHANNEL 5

KIVZ-Channel 5 Television Case Study and Data Base

KIVZ-Channel 5 Television Case Study and Data Base

1.Comment on the methods used by KIVZ for collecting data in this marketing research effort. Do you believe that the sampling process used constitutes a random sampling process? Explain.

KIVZ collecting data for marketing research for examining the actual steps taken by a television station marketing department to collect data pertaining to the viewing habits of people who customarily watch the 6:00 P.M. local news on one or more of the region's three television stations. KIVZ decided to collect the survey data by using telephone surveys and mail questioners were considered viable options as opposed to personal interviews which would be too costly and time consuming. As with any study of this kind, the budget available for the survey tends to dictate the approach that can be taken. Alex approved a $4,000 budget which was to cover all costs of performing the survey. Any data analysis would require expenses on top of the $4,000.

The sampling procedure should follow acceptable statistical sampling procedures and the sample size should be as large as possible within the $4,000 budget. Within a week Alex and the marketing department had arrived at the following sampling plan. A two step sampling process would be employed. In step 1, a telephone survey would be used to determine whether the household regularly watched a local evening news program on one of the local television stations. If the head of the household said “no,” the household was determined not to belong to the population of interest. If the response was “yes,” he or she was asked to respond to a written questioner. As an inducement, a lottery for a portable colour television would be conducted among those who returned the written questioner.

The telephone numbers to be called were generated using a computer program which prints out random telephone numbers based on the number of telephones in the Middletown area. Information about telephone numbers was obtained through the local telephone company. The random dialling offered the advantage of being able to call households not listed in the telephone directory. If a business number was called, the caller apologized for the inconvenience and dialled the next number on the list. The callers followed an established procedure: if the household did not answer on the first call, three additional tries were made to the number at different times of the day and evening. After a total of four calls with no answer, the number was discarded.

Printed questioners were mailed to 500 households initially. Follow-up questioners were then mailed to those that had not responded within two weeks. Of the 500 possible responses, 433 usable responses were ultimately obtained. This was considered an extraordinary return for a mail survey.

The sampling procedure which is used by KIVZ is simple random sampling, as simple random sampling is a probabilistic sampling method, whereby each element of the population has a known and equal probability of ...