New Universal McCann Online Survey Also Sees Snowboarding on the Rise

    NEW YORK, Feb. 22 /PRNewswire/ -- Proving that there's nothing like a good
controversy to get people excited, a new Universal McCann nationwide survey
has found that the pairs ice-skating storm actually increased TV viewing
interest in the Winter Olympics overall.  This was true among all viewers, but
especially among those aged 13-24.
    Universal McCann, a leading advertising media buying firm, conducted the
survey via a new online method that it had developed in order to get quick
responses nationwide to key media questions.  This research, which polled
600 people (59% female, 41% male) aged 13 or over across the country, found
that 25% of respondents overall indicated that they were "more interested in
following the games" because of the judging controversy.  Only 15% said they
"were less interested" as a result of it.
    Interest was particularly piqued among those aged 13-24 with 13% of those
in this age group saying that they intended to watch more of the games because
of the scandal.  Among adults 25 and over, 6% said they were more interested
as a result of the controversy.  Overall, 60% of all respondents said that the
controversy around the pairs ice-skating did not affect their
interest/feelings about the games.
    The Universal McCann online research tool, dubbed Intuition, also looked
at which sports were most popular.  Figure skating, skiing and bobsled/luge
are all around favorites for all age groups.  The older group (25+) expressed
interest in snow boarding as well, but not to the same extent as 13-24
respondents, who were 33% more interested.
    Olympic viewers appear to be absorbed by the competition, as 74% of those
who are watching the Games report tuning in daily, and more than one-half
report viewing more than an hour each day.  Comparatively, when isolating the
13-24 year old Olympic viewers, only 54% are watching daily, and the majority
(two-thirds) is watching less than an hour per day.  According to Intuition,
39% of all people aged 13 or older are tuning into at least some Olympic
coverage each day.  This figure closely resembles the daily reach reported by
Nielsen Media Research's NPower system, which estimates that 35% of all people
aged 13 or older are reached on a daily basis by the Olympic television
coverage.
    "The objective of Intuition is to provide rapid assessment of agency and
advertiser hypotheses, ideas and proposals with regard to media viewing," said
Susan Nathan, Senior VP and Director of Media Knowledge at Universal McCann
North America.  "The fact that our findings are confirmed directionally by
Nielsen demonstrates that we have a way of getting a handle on how ratings are
influenced by media content."

    Universal McCann, with global billings of $17.2  billion, is one of the
world's largest media service firms.  Universal McCann is part of
McCann-Erickson WorldGroup.

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