Teleconomy Newsletter
Sample
This article is taken from
our FREE monthly Teleconomy newsletter. To
subscribe, please click here.
TV brings the family
together By
Sue Peters
 Given
the rise of TVs, games consoles, music players and mobile
phones in teenagers’ bedrooms, you may be forgiven
for thinking that teens take great pleasure in skulking
off to their own rooms to chill to some soothing sounds
of angst rock. You may also be forgiven for thinking
that given our hectic lifestyles families don’t
eat together anymore. Research already shows that meal
times are becoming more fragmented and may give way
to snacks in the next 5 years.
However, you would be wrong in thinking that that families
are spending less time together in the house when it
comes to TV habits. The Living Room project conducted
by Teleconomy has shown that the living room is still
the hub of the household: it is alive and kicking. Schedulers
and broadcaster will be pleased to learn that although
programme choice is increasing, people still look forward
to sitting down together at 7.30pm for Eastenders.
People enjoy watching programmes together, not only
in the same room but as part of a wider community. The
family actually enjoy coming together to watch TV in
the living room.
New technologies like Tivo that acts like a personal
video recorder may bypass the format of linear scheduling,
but there is something intrinsic to the living room
that may challenge the ability to select programmes
in an a la carte fashion. The values placed on the living
room will also influence the uptake of multiple digital
TV set top boxes that would allow control of digital
TV in each room with a box.
Teens have a huge say over what is watched, and if
they don’t get their own way it seems that to
leave the room is the last resort even though they have
a plethora of media in their own rooms. They also drive
their parents to breaking point with their incredible
reflexes to avoid ads and go interactive. Yet they stay
together in the one room, the room that seems to provide
a shelter from the outside world, a comfort zone and
a place where all the good technology lives. We played
big brother to 15 families over a two month period to
see what really happened in the living room and we saw
that the living room was indeed that, living.
|
