Nielsen’s “Ethnic Trends In Media,” is a comprehensive report profiling African-American, Asian, Hispanic and White households in the U.S.  This report examines household characteristics, television usage, timeshifted viewing and popular programming genres for each group.

Key findings include:

• Household characteristics are quite different across each ethnic break.  Size, geographic territory and media ownership, such as video game consoles and DVRs, are just some of the notable differences

• TV usage is different: Persons age 18-49 in African-American households view more TV than Total U.S., while Hispanic and Asian persons in the same age group was less.

• The median age of a TV viewer is 45, but African-American, Asian and Hispanic viewers tend to be younger (40, 39, 32, respectively).

• Participation variety shows, such as Dancing with the Stars and Biggest Loser 6, are the most popular genre for total U.S. viewers, and are near the top for all ethnic breaks.  Fox NFL Sunday Football was the top or near-top program for all ethnic breaks except for Hispanics, who favored “Fuego En La Sangre” on Univision.

Download a PDF of the full report here.

The difficult economic conditions have forced most Americans to think about how they spend their money, so it is little surprise that 63 percent of those surveyed said that they had changed their spending habits.  26 percent said that they had cut back TV-related spending, primarily by purchasing fewer video on demand and pay-per-view movies/events (16%) or making fewer purchases and rentals of DVDs (19%).  11 percent of people surveyed said that they had altered their cable/direct satellite subscription package in some way, while 3 percent said that they had cancelled their subscriptions altogether.

Overall, more men and women aged 18 to 34 said that they had cut back on TV-related spending, and that same age group also cancelled their cable/satellite subscriptions at higher rates than other age groups. Households with kids changed their spending habits slightly more (66%) than the group as a whole, as did African-American, Asian and Hispanic Households (70%, 75%, 77%, respectively).  Hispanics also cancelled their cable/satellite service at a much higher rate than other groups, with 13 percent of those households ending their service versus the overall average of 3 percent.

“While some kinds of discretionary spending, such as travel and car and clothing purchases, have taken a significant hit, TV-related expenses have been spared significant cuts at this point.  Consumers may reduce the number of movies they rent, or perhaps downgrade their service, but overall it appears that TV continues to be almost a necessity rather than discretionary,” said Pat McDonough, senior vice president of Planning Policy & Analysis at Nielsen.

To read more about this and other related data, click here for Nielsen’s SportsQuest^TM Survey.

Broadcast television placements grew by almost 12% between January and June of 2008, while placements on cable television declined by 20%.

Changes in program line-ups accounted for the growth of broadcast placements — and the decrease in cable placements. 

On the broadcast side, two programs with a significant number of product placements aired more episodes in early 2008, boosting the overall number of placements in the first half of the year.  NBC’s “Biggest Loser,” which normally airs in the fall, moved the start of its fifth season up to January 2008, while FOX’s “Hell’s Kitchen” started its fifth season in April, several months earlier than it did in 2007. 

On the cable side, shows like TLC’s “American Chopper” and “Miami Ink,” MTV’s “Run’s House” and “Pimp My Ride,” and A&E’s “Driving Force” and “Dog The Bounty Hunter,” which featured a large number of product placements in early 2007, aired less frequently or were removed from cable primetime line-ups during the first half of 2008. 

Overall, 204,919 product placements aired on broadcast and cable TV programs between January and June of 2008. 

Nielsen’s report includes data for 11 networks, including ABC, CBS, CW, FOX, MNT, NBC, A&E, Bravo, HGTV, MTV, and TLC.

View the full press release.

Read more about product placement trends in Nielsen’s “Consumer Insight” newsletter.

Read coverage of Nielsen’s findings in Condé Nast Portfolio, Ad Age, Variety, The New York Times, Multichannel News, Broadcasting & Cable, The Globe and Mail, and MediaPost.