For Immediate Release

Today’s Teens Redefining Television Viewing

User-Generated Content and Comedy Rank at the Top
– But News Trumps Celebs

(Alexandria, VA - April 7, 2008) Today’s teens are redefining “television” viewing by selecting a broader range of content options on an increasing array of devices. When asked the types of video content they view on any device, user-generated video clips ranked highest at 76 percent, with comedy clips and music videos in the next top spots at 69 percent and 65 percent, respectively. Perhaps surprisingly, teens say they’re watching news and political clips more often than celebrity or gossip clips.



So what’s happening with more traditional TV viewing? Eighty-three percent of teens still report viewing content on a television set, with a high percentage also watching on a desktop computer (44%). The laptop computer (24%), portable media player (15%) and cell phone (8%) currently lag the TV set by a wide margin. However, of those teens who say they’re first to adopt new technology, there was significant increase in those watching video on laptops (37%) and portable media players (28%), showing that broad acceptance of mobile viewing is on the horizon.

Teens are truly living in a broadband world – turning to the Internet as a tool for gathering information, providing entertainment, and as a means of establishing their identity and connecting to others. Two-thirds of teens have their own personal Web page, 71 percent have reached out to others through online games, and 34 percent have created their own videos to share online.

With the Internet being such an integral part of their lives, their connection speed is top-of-mind. More than two-thirds combined have either a cable modem (34%) or DSL service (35%). When asked about speed, 62 percent of teens with a cable modem agreed cable service was “super speedy,” compared to just half of teens with DSL.

This study was conducted by ICR for the March CTAM Pulse, Teens’ Techie Behavior and is part of ICR’s TeenEXCEL research. It was based on a telephone survey that ran February 6 – 10, 2008. The teen sample includes 512 randomly selected teenage consumers aged 12 – 17 years old. Fifty-four percent of weighted respondents are cable customers, including 52 percent of those who have digital cable service (30% of the total). Thirty-three percent of the respondents are satellite television households. The study has a +/-4.4 percentage point margin of error.

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CTAM, the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing, is dedicated to helping the cable business grow. As a non-profit professional association, CTAM provides marketing education and networking opportunities to more than 5,500 members, through conferences, consumer research, publications, www.ctam.com, a network of regional chapters, and the CTAM Executive Management Program at the Harvard Business School. CTAM also facilitates unified, national cooperative marketing efforts on behalf of its corporate members, such as the Cable Movers Hotline (SM), Business Services Initiative, and On Demand Consortium. Consumers can learn about cable's advanced services and see offers from their local providers at the CTAM-supported www.ThisIsCable.com (SM).  

Contacts: Diana Cronan, CTAM, Director, Communications and Media Relations, 703.837.6575, diana@ctam.com

Melissa Lee, CTAM, Communications Coordinator, 703.837.6577, melissa@ctam.com