Poll: Americans who watch news satire support 'Net neutrality'
John Oliver is reaching voters, UD study shows
A University of Delaware poll of 802 Americans found 81% oppose "allowing Internet service providers to charge some websites or streaming video services extra for faster speeds," while 17% said they liked the idea.
The survey by UD's Center for Political Communication appears to support President Obama's calculation that most Americans oppose letting (as UD puts it) "Internet service providers such as Comcast and Verizon... set aside higher-speed service for content providers who pay extra." Instead, more people identify with "streaming video services such as Netflix, Hulu and Amazon," which presumably will charge less if they don't have to pay more. Obama's stand drove down cable stocks and dismayed Comcast's David L. Cohen and other cable apologists.
Maybe this is the real news: The people most strongly supportive of "Net neutrality" were the ones who've heard the most about it -- on comedy satire programs: viewers of HBO's Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, who last summer posted this video on Google' YouTube about net neutrality (29% of Oliver's viewers said they've "heard a lot" about the topic), Comedy Central's Colbert Report (23%) and John Stewart's Daily Show (22%). Least familiar with net neutrality were TV viewers, especially fans of Fox news (just 7% of Fox-watchers "heard a lot" about net neutrality). Netflix and other streaming-media users were relatively more familiar with the subject. Newspaper and online-media readers were in the middle.