The Three Ages Of Television

TV seems to come in threes.

I have previously in this blog outlined the three eras of television:

-the social age when everyone crowded around the box in the corner and watched together
-the fragmented 'meTV' age we live in now, and
-the socially networked era of television that we are just beginning to see as the internet links viewers and enables them to interact virtually, often whilst watching shows

Likewise, recent research shows that the TV audience can now be broken into three distinct audiences.

- over forties tend to watch traditional, scheduled TV
- twenty and thirtysomethings have a predilection (probably because of busy lives and young children) to timeshift, and
- even younger audiences don't watch 'traditional' TV at all, getting most of their video online

The second of these audiences is the most valuable to advertisers and becoming the most difficult to reach; they are also the first generation to become used to 'meTV', making advertising campaigns complex to plan and run.