Television public service announcements as outreach for potential clients

Though the use of public service announcements (PSAs) in mass media campaigns has been criticized because they tend to receive limited audience exposure, due to few prime-time broadcasts, the "Feelings Just Are" PSAs reached a target audience of children without relying on frequent broadcasts during evening prime-time. The "Feelings Just Are" series of PSAs for school-age children was aired by 19 commercial, educational, and independent television stations in South Carolina. One of the commercial stations recorded the date and time of each PSA broadcast during the campaign's first year and provided its hourly audience ratings for children. Comparing the time of broadcast of the PSAs to the station's audience ratings revealed the amount of audience exposure the PSAs received. The results indicate that the 188 broadcasts from this station produced an estimated 7.4 million exposures among the station's total viewing audience, including 1.1 million exposures among school-age children. Nearly 80% of the 188 broadcasts occurred during heavy viewing hours for children, mostly during children's daytime viewing hours on weekdays and weekends. The results suggest that public service air time from local television stations may be a potentially valuable resource for mass-media based community interventions.

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