Lyndall Campher
THE youth are notoriously fickle when viewing television and the past two weeks of data demonstrate some interesting insights. Firstly, the coloured, Indian and white (CWI) youth and the black youth view different programmes, and secondly the way they view tends to be different.
The top ten programmes are:
CWI Youth %
Fresh Prince of Belair 13,5
Tomorrow People 12,4
Jewish Voice 10,7
Egoli 10,6
The Simpsons 10,5
Cybernet 10
The Outer Limits 9,9
Kompas 9,9
Ploom 9,8
The Nanny 9,7
Black Youth %
Generations 24,6
New York Undercover 24,5
Molo Fish! 24,4
Itala Lamawele 22,5
The Bold & the Beautiful 22,4
Compass 22,4
Going Up 21,7
Days of our Lives 20,7
Living Single 20,6
Sister Sister 20
What this demonstrates is a polarisation of tastes in television programme viewership. There is also a polarisation between the black youth and their parents. The parents tend to prefer programmes broadcast in African languages, while the youth’s tastes run to English language programmes.
With an increasing number of TV sets with remote controls, the challenge is to deal with the zapping, channel-surfing and cascade-viewing endemic to all youth. Advertisers need to think about how the youth market view programmes and look for windows of receptivity.
This means segmenting programmes into “made an appointment to view” or “dip in and dip out”, to try and reach an increasingly volatile market.