How do cable television subscribers differ from those who choose not to subscribe to cable? A study employed the uses and gratification paradigm to construct a questionnaire that solicited data from 600 television households in the Dayton, Ohio market. The sample was stratified to assure that one-third of the households had cable available but chose not to subscribe, one-third subscribed to basic cable but not to pay cable, and the remaining third subscribed to both basic and pay cable. Factor analysis, analysis of variance, and discriminate analysis were used to analyze the data. Results indicated that there were differences among the groups with regard to program choices, media usage patterns, and gratification derived from television viewing as well as demographic and lifestyle variations. Future research should consider viewing motivation typology, further refinement of the subscriber type models, and replication with geographically divergent populations. (One chart is included; 13 references are attached.) (Author/RS)