Republicans Like Golf, Democrats Prefer Cartoons, TV Research Suggests

October 11, 2012, 7:42 pm

By BILL CARTER

It sounds like a cliché: but if the results of a TiVo-based research study are to be believed, registered Republicans are very interested in golf.

As for registered Democrats, they seem to be partial to cartoons. And Republicans tend to watch NCAA basketball, while Democrats prefer the National Basketball Association.

The results come from an analysis assembled by TRA, Inc. (which stands for TiVo Research and Analytics), and are based on a model that matches viewing data from cable set-top boxes with voter-registration information from 186,000 households. Measured during the first two quarters of 2012 (which is why there is no football, but plenty of basketball), TRA listed programs by how they perfo rmed with registered voters of either party (as well as Independents) compared to a base of all registered voters.

In general, the conclusions pointed to television viewing that is every bit as polarized as the political culture. The research listed the top 20 shows for Democratic and Republican viewers and not one network show appeared on both lists.

The study didn't rank shows by overall popularity. Instead, they were ranked by how severely they were skewed by party preference. So a little-viewed show on the CW network like “Supernatural” turned out to have a substantial skew toward Democratic voters; 13 per cent above the base. (The base, or index, is given a value of 100; thus “Supernatural” indexed 113 among registered Democrats measured by TRA.) Meanwhile, two of the top indexing shows for Republicans were PGA golf tournaments.

Overall, the Democratic list contained a lot of animated comedies - “The Cleveland Show,” “Family Guy,” “Am erican Dad,”- as well as lightly viewed but critically acclaimed sit-coms like “30Rock” and “Community.”

The Republican list, beyond sports (NASCAR was also big), was populated with a host of reality shows â€" “The Biggest Loser,” “Survivor,” “American Idol,” and “The Amazing Race.'

That was the network list. On cable, the difference in preferences remained: no show in the top 20 of either list crossed over to the other party's list of shows.

Democrats loved coverage of the White House Correspondents Dinner (with an index of 126 it was hugely skewed to viewers with that party preference), while also predictably supporting Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert in late night. Each had an index of 117 in the Democratic list.

On the Republican side, golf and NASCAR were again all over the cable list, but a drama on ABC Family, “Pretty Little Liars,” a teen-mystery series, had the top index, a 118. The fa vorite late-night show for Republicans was Jay Leno's “Tonight” show. That had an index of 105; the only other late-night comic to index above 100 among Republicans in this survey was Jimmy Fallon â€" barely at 101. (He had exactly the base index of 100 with Democrats and Independents.)

Republican tastes in cable also ran to reality sagas involving pawnbrokers (“Pawn Stars” on History Channel), polygamists (“Sisters Wives Tell All” on TLC), pools (“Cool Pools” on HGTV), and pets (“Posh Pets” on HGTV). Democrats were more represented in dark AMC dramas like “The Killing” and “Mad Men” and anything having to do with the NBA, which accounted for no fewer than five of the top 20 cable shows on the Democratic list.