Twin Cities Not So Hot for TV Ratings

[Dickie Flatt]

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050613/ap_en_bu/tv_refrainers

The greater Twin Cities television viewing area is one of the largest broadcast markets in the country, but when it comes to turning on the tube, many folks in the region just say no. ...

The Twin Cities viewing area — which Nielsen Media Research defines broadly as a 59-county region that runs north to Bemidji and east into Wisconsin — is the 14th largest market in the country.

But its viewership consistently ranks at or near the bottom, according to Nielsen. ...

Researchers say the reason is that the region is wealthier and better educated. The market has more college graduates and higher-income earners than most cities, and those socio-economic groups don't watch as much television as other groups.

[tmooses]

1. I read someplace where Minnesota (Minneapolis?) ranked number

one for people reading. Sounds like a good place to be.

[Dickie Flatt]

2. Minneapolis ranks highest of the literates, study finds

http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2004-08-02-literate-cities_x.htm

The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them, Mark Twain has been credited with saying.

A new study takes that principle a step further, ranking the USA's "most literate" cities not by how many residents can read, but by various measures of how many do. And by those measures, Minneapolis is the most literate, El Paso, the least.

The study examines the extent to which residents of the USA's largest 79 cities behave in literate ways — such as buying newspapers and books or checking materials out of the library.

Like Minneapolis, many top-ranked cities (Seattle, Washington, Boston and San Francisco) also boast some of the nation's most highly educated and affluent residents. In contrast, low-ranking cities, such as the Texas-Mexico border town of El Paso, tend to attract recent immigrants, many of them poor and with little schooling. Of the 20 cities at the bottom of the heap, Texas and California are home to 14.

[tmooses]

3. I noticed Hialeah, FL is 2nd to last. I wonder if reading the

Daily Racing Form counts.