Viewing Habits of Young People
02 Oct 07
Everyone talks about how the way we view television is changing, but just how much is true and how much is guesswork? RTS Futures in association with OC&C Research are now able to provide some facts.
The big questions that were asked focused on how much television young people watched, how they watched it and what stopped them watching more. 43% of respondents said they were watching less television than they did 3 years ago and the reasons given for this included complaints about too many repeats, lack of quality and range and annoying adverts.
The research clearly showed that "layered media consumption" is on the rise, up to 86% of people browse the internet, read or socialise at the same time as watching television.
Another interesting aspect of the research was the indication that it may be incorrect to label people by their age. Results showed that there was a considerable variance depending on "life-stage"; 47% of respondents said their TV watching had been affected by living on their own, 27% when they had children.
The report goes on to make recommendations for how to respond to these results:
"The under 30s are not a homogenous group; there are important variations in the types of programming desired and the reasons for not consuming more television. This suggests that broadcasters should focus on the needs of particular niches, employing multi-screen, multi-channel and ‘on demand’ solutions to satisfy these needs."
The report was covered in The Observer on 30th September and you can read the full report here (pdf).
