Predicting Favorite Tv Program Gratifications From General Orientations

This article tests the relationships between general orientations to TV and gratifications received from favorite programs named by survey respondents. A telephone survey of 302 adults in Santa Clara County, California, found that orientations corresponding to gratifications received were powerful but not unique in predicting program gratifications in regression equations. Demographics were not systematically associated with either orientations or gratifications. But multiple repetitions of statements used to measure both orientations and gratifications presented response consistency as an alternative explanation for orientations' predictive power. Typologies based on comparative strengths of orientations accounted for this consistency and confirmed the predictive power of general orientations to TV as a medium. Involvement was added to the prediction equations but was related only to entertainment gratifications; the results suggest that involvement might be more appropriately considered a gratification than a predictor.