Far From The Last Rites, TV’s Alive And Kicking: David Webb

While there’s an abundance of coverage online about how the box in the corner of the living room is slowly perishing due to the web, David Webb disagrees.

Being the director of research and planning at news and entertainment company Turner International Asia Pacific, Webb said they haven’t seen much change for them in terms of TV viewing times.

“People get very excited about online taking over TV, but actually TV is not really being affected,” he told B&T.

“Over time we see TV fairly stable, online time spent has obviously grown, but it’s succinctly at more the cost of print than TV. Everyone is saying ‘TV is over’, ‘the death of TV’ – it’s absolutely not the case.”

The comments came as Turner Broadcasting’s Cartoon Network releases its latest New Generations research which analyses the media habits and spending power of young consumers.

TV continues to be the source of information for kids too, says the research, with 85% watching the big screen in the past month. Seven out of ten kids are also watching that TV with their parents.

“Television is the number one media for kids,” added Webb. “Outside of their friendship group it is the most important media when it comes to how they find out about new things that appeal to them. This, coupled with the fact that the majority of kids spend time co-viewing with the household purchasing decision maker every week, means TV is still the most effective advertising medium for reaching this important audience.”

It probably also comes as no surprise that kids are bouncing around various mediums, and if they can’t find the information immediately, they’ll pop to another place to look for it. No hanging about and waiting in this group

“It’s important for a broadcaster, like ourselves, or advertisers to be able to reach kids where they are,” said Webb. “They’ll consume video online as a supplement to their TV viewing, but it’s really on their own terms. For us, it’s important to have the content there, available for when they come and they take those snacks of content.”

App usage was a big area in the latest research. Minecraft came out as the most used app, with YouTube, Angry Birds, Facebook and Candy Crush filling out the top five.

And social media remains strong with the youngsters. While most of the social media platforms have an age restriction on them, Cartoon Network says it’s able to reach the ‘influencers’ such as siblings on its Facebook page which has more than two million fans, as well as on the Facebook page for one of its most popular shows, Adventure Time, which has more than 18 million ‘likes’.

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