Millennials, 18-35 - research


Millennials

Millennials, the term used to describe those born roughly between 1985 and 2000, are the first generation to live as young people in the digital age. Consequently, their viewing patterns with regards to TV take the shape that the digital era has moulded for them. According to Nielsen's Q4 Total Audience Report in 2015, the viewing activity of millennials is in "rapid transition".

This of course is to do with the rise of streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu, which offer viewers access to a wide variety of shows, but leaves the option of what to watch and when to watch it to the individual viewer. There is no scheduled timetable, which means there are fewer limitations. This system is one that's hard to beat, and equally as hard to compete with for existing, "old-school" TV networks.

However, while it's true that millennials are spending more time watching online services, this doesn't mean that television is being neglected. In fact, the aforementioned Nielsen Report seemed to find that it was more about in what stage of life a millennial is than it is about the generation from which they come. Millennials in the later stages of the demographic tend to watch more TV on TV than those in the earlier stages, and millennials living on their own without children seem to be the ones spending the most time watching online services.

Millennial is such a broad term, and it is difficult to categorise such a vast array of people, ages and lifestyles into hard data. The gist of it seems to be that millennials do spend less time watching TV than previous generations did because they have access to newer, arguably better technologies and means of accessing their favourite shows: on demand, and when they want. Millennials are often labelled as a needy generation, but on this subject, it seems to be less about neediness and more about convenience, because streaming services are nothing if not convenient.
However, TV is not a totally neglected form, for example the older part of the generation, the part with people that have families of their own, seems to watch TV quite often.

Whatever else comes from the rise of streaming services, one unquestionable consequence has been increased competition, with the shiny new services forcing the rusty old Beeb and what-does-the-I-even-stand-for-TV to adapt to this brave new world or suffer the wrath of digitalised natural selection. Debates about the potential removal of the license fee for the BBC have been prominent topics of discussion in recent times for this very reason: the old structure of TV is hanging on by a thread while Netflix in turn seems to put out a new original series every 20 minutes. As a result of this, TV networks are being forced to do better, to produce more original shows with more audience appeal and more of this and more of that, because if the shows aren't good enough, the audiences now, really for the first time since TV was created, genuinely have somewhere else to go: online.

Millennials may accidentally kill traditional TV (they seem to be good at accidentally killing things), but when you look at the competition, can you really blame them?










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