Ebb & Flow
Definition:
Ebb and flow refers to the movement in audience from station to station or program to program at a given point in time. Ebb and flow studies involve tracking the audience achieved by a program in the quarter-hour immediately before the point in question through to the quarter-hour immediately following. The first quarter-hour audience has three alternative flows:
- It can stay tuned to the program already selected.
- It can move to another program on another station or,
- It can switch off.
Similarly,the audience in the quarter-hour immediately after the point of time in question can be described as coming from the three sources:
- It can be the audience remaining tuned to the selected program,
- It can come to the program from another program on another station or,
- It could be new 'switch-on' audience.
