The party divide on the remote control

Even wielding the remote control has political implications these days: political campaigns have increasing ability to target their TV ad buys not just by gender, age and income of a TV show's audience, but by political leanings as well.

Even as large an audience as a prime-time broadcast network show can have a political skew, according to consumer marketing surveys of registered voters by Scarborough Research -- information that political media buyers put to use.

Blue shows: Democrats, and Democratic-leaning independents, are more likely to watch daytime talk shows (28% more likely than all TV viewers, according to Scarborough), late-night talk shows, courtroom shows, soap operas and music videos.

Red shows:: Republicans, and Republican-leaning independents, watch less TV than Democrats do. They prefer sports (10% more likely than all viewers), network news, religious programs and reality adventure shows.

Independents watch documentaries, science fiction and mystery/crime shows.

On cable, the audience is much smaller, but more politically pronounced, according to Scarborough: networks with the most disproportionately Democratic audiences are TVone, BET, MSNBC, NBA, and WeTV -- reflecting higher rates of women and African Americans registered as Democrats. A Republican-heavy audience is watching Fox Business Channel, Fox News, the Golf Channel, and ESPNU college sports. Independents are playing video games on G4 and watching Biography and the History Channel.