Ofcom have produced a report that highlights how media fragmentation is affecting a generation who have grown up expecting to have the world at their fingertips through the Internet, and are increasingly finding that traditional media isn’t giving them what they or want.
The report has been commented upon by BBC News who have come to the conclusion that the so called "Networked Generation" is using online media more and more and leaving the old world behind.
"Sixteen to 24 year olds are spurning television, radio and newspapers in favour of online services"
Shock!
"The 2006 Ofcom report also found that increasingly households are turning to broadband and digital TV".
A startling piece of insight. Who would have believed that people are switching to broadband and digital TV in this day and age?
In seriousness though, there are some interesting facts in the report. Firstly, there are apparently 1.8 million people in the UK who are now using a VoIP service, such as Skype, to keep in touch. I can see this myself, let alone 16-24 yr olds, as a lot of my friends, many of whom I would never class as being very web savvy, have switched over to Skype as recently as a few weeks ago to speak to each other, especially when long distance is involved and it is effectively free. (Admittedly the tipping point for this was a close friend in Japan installing Skype and a lot of others following to keep in touch - had this not occurred I don’t think they would have been so keen to find out about the service).
The second interesting thing is in regard to social networking sites. Apparently a massive 70% of the 16 to 24 age group have used a social networking site such as MySpace or Bebo (not saying how many regularly use it of course - I guess that could be a lot lower), compared with just 40% of the rest of the country. The report goes on to say that 20% of them have their own blog, which might be, I suppose, contained within their MySpace usage. This is a huge number of people regularly using the online space.
Focusing on the topic news itself, Kay Withers, a representative from the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) is quoted as saying:
"We want to find out what it means to turn away from newspapers and public service broadcasting, and to find out the types of news sources they are now favouring."
Which is an interesting thing to say. It assumes that the biggest impact the move into online media will have is in the news and current affairs area as opposed to anything else, such as entertainment or general communications. The easy answer for someone like me would be to say that blogs and other forms of citizen journalism are drawing in the crowds as a result of increased trust due to the transparent nature of the new media but, in reality (and I have no data for this) I suspect that teenagers simply aren’t interested in the news. I personally don’t know many of them who would gladly read the Guardian or switch onto News 24 to catch up with the latest on the Lebanon crisis. Could it not be that these people are still too young, simply interested in having a good time, to be bothered with traditional media? That will come later, when they have a mortgage to worry about etc. etc. (OK - sounding old now) and the biggest impact that they are having at the moment is in terms of light entertainment which is, for marketers of a more traditional TV led ilk, the interesting fact?
The IPPR go on:
"This could have a major impact on media regulation, public policy and on the political world too."
For this I offer one possible future (I am sure there are others) - there will be no regulation! The whole point of "new media"/citizen journalism/blogging/web2.0/etc. is that it’s de-regulated or, at best, self-regulated. That’s the beauty of it. That’s why it’s so attractive in the first place, by bypassing the regulatory bodies, by placing the means of production and distribution into the hands of the consumer it frees the audience and the producer at the same time. Public policy and the political World will have to adapt to the new generation, not the other way around (and that’s the way it should be after all!).
Of course I fully believe, and hope, that this trend in a move towards purely online (if not "digital" media, for it will be offline too before long if you consider offline to be "in your pocket") continues to grow at the pace it does, but I think the picture needs to be looked at in a wider context than simply saying kids don’t like old media in such an easy move.
If you consider Adam Curry’s 5/50 rule, which theorises that within 5 years 50% of the content will be generated by consumers, then the move over to those sources by the audience is a natural path for them to follow.
What the report does highlight very well is the increased fragmentation of the audience share. The graph below goes to show this, and that’s probably the most interesting thing we can observe as marketers.
No single media is going to do the trick any more. It’s a mixed bag out there, and only getting more complex and the trend is to move away from the platforms that have for so long been the bread and butter of the industry - TV and print. As TV, Radio, and eventually magazines and new papers, move over to purely digital platforms that allow for the same kind of interactive marketing as the platforms like the web and mobile currently provide we will be forced to adapt our thinking to take control (if possible) and advantage of the freedom/complexity that this fragmentation provides.
The graph has the same basic trend for all segments of the audience, the truth is, as always, that kids are doing it more quickly.
Howard
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howard | 
08 13th, 2007| 
