IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/bejeap/vtopics.5y2005i1n4.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do People Value Racial Diversity? Evidence from Nielsen Ratings

Author

Listed:
  • Aldrich Eric M

    (University of Washington, eric@stat.washington.edu)

  • Arcidiacono Peter S.

    (Duke University, psarcidi@econ.duke.edu)

  • Vigdor Jacob L

    (Duke University, jacob.vigdor@duke.edu)

Abstract

Nielsen ratings for ABC's Monday Night Football are significantly higher when the game involves a black quarterback. In this paper, we consider competing explanations for this effect. First, quarterback race might proxy for other player or team attributes. Second, black viewership patterns might be sensitive to quarterback race. Third, viewers of all races might be exhibiting a taste for diversity. We use both ratings data and evidence on racial attitudes from the General Social Survey to test these hypotheses empirically. The evidence strongly supports the taste-for-diversity hypothesis, while suggesting some role for black own-race preferences as well.

Suggested Citation

  • Aldrich Eric M & Arcidiacono Peter S. & Vigdor Jacob L, 2005. "Do People Value Racial Diversity? Evidence from Nielsen Ratings," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-24, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:bejeap:v:topics.5:y:2005:i:1:n:4
    DOI: 10.1515/1538-0653.1396
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1515/1538-0653.1396
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1515/1538-0653.1396?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Florent Dubois & Christophe Muller, 2017. "Segregation and the Perception of the Minority," AMSE Working Papers 1718, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    2. Raul Caruso & Francesco Addesa & Marco Di Domizio, 2019. "The Determinants of the TV Demand for Soccer: Empirical Evidence on Italian Serie A for the Period 2008-2015," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 20(1), pages 25-49, January.
    3. Lee Jungmin, 2009. "American Idol: Evidence on Same-Race Preferences," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 9(1), pages 1-21, July.
    4. Myers Caitlin Knowles, 2008. "Discrimination as a Competitive Device: The Case of Local Television News," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 8(1), pages 1-28, August.
    5. Kevin Lang, 2015. "Racial Realism: A Review Essay on John Skrentny's After Civil Rights," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 53(2), pages 351-359, June.
    6. Brown, Katie M. & Salaga, Steven, 2018. "NCAA football television viewership: Product quality and consumer preference relative to market expectations," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 377-390.
    7. Melissa S. Kearney & Phillip B. Levine, 2015. "Media Influences on Social Outcomes: The Impact of MTV's 16 and Pregnant on Teen Childbearing," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(12), pages 3597-3632, December.
    8. Grimshaw Scott D. & Burwell Scott J., 2014. "Choosing the most popular NFL games in a local TV market," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 10(3), pages 329-343, September.
    9. Grimshaw Scott D. & Sabin R. Paul & Willes Keith M., 2013. "Analysis of the NCAA Men’s Final Four TV audience," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 9(2), pages 115-126, June.
    10. Barry Bozeman & Daniel Fay, 2013. "Minority Football Coaches’ Diminished Careers: Why is the “Pipeline” Clogged?," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 94(1), pages 29-58, March.
    11. Peter Arcidiacono & Jacob L. Vigdor, 2010. "Does The River Spill Over? Estimating The Economic Returns To Attending A Racially Diverse College," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 48(3), pages 537-557, July.
    12. Anderson, Simon & Waldfogel, Joel, 2015. "Preference Externalities in Media Markets," CEPR Discussion Papers 10835, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Scott Tainsky & Chad D. McEvoy, 2012. "Television Broadcast Demand in Markets Without Local Teams," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 13(3), pages 250-265, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:bejeap:v:topics.5:y:2005:i:1:n:4. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.