The consumption of television is forever changing based on historical, technological and

age factors

In this essay, I will be arguing that the consumption of television is forever changing based on
factors such as age (5-25 years old) and technological advancement. To understand why TV is
changing constantly, it is important to understand that the way we consume TV has been debated
and has changed historically, and the introduction of TV as a new form of media is only relatively
recent - in the UK the number of TV's in the home began to rise in June 1953 - the month of the
Queen’s coronation (BBC News, 2013). This has lead to the development of different platforms for
different types of viewers, each platform of which has a different place in history along with the
most up to date technology of the time. Jeremy Tunstall’s theory on audience engagement (1970)
argues that there are three audiences that engage with the media, which are primary, secondary
and tertiary. The primary audience is the audience who consume the text and become engaged
with the narrative, someone in the secondary audience will consume the text but be engaged in
another text at the same time, for example watching the tv while eating a meal or using social
media, and someone in the tertiary audience will consume the text via background engagement,
for example TV is on in the background, or the radio is on in the car (Tunstall, 1970).

Tunstall developed his audience engagement theory in 1970, and as Enli states, the discussion of
the changing consumption of television has been discussed since the beginning of the
popularisation of the TV in the home. “We are not the first generation to be faced with the question
of “what is television?” (or what is any other medium for that matter).” (Enli, 2015 p. 48). Enli
continues; “Since these early days, television has gone through many phases and taken on various
forms such as experimental, monopoly, paternalist public service, competition, scheduling, niche
channels, cable and satellite, on-demand and pay-tv—each with separate features that impact on
how television is understood.” (Enli and Syvertsen, 2016) Enli mentions nine different
developments in phases of TV - “experimental, monopoly, paternalist public service, competition,
scheduling, niche channels, cable and satellite, on-demand and pay-tv” Of these nine, niche
channels, cable and satellite and on-demand and pay-tv are currently the most relevant, as they
have been developed over time for the specific needs of the viewers.

Almost all broadcasters now have more than one channel, and the BBC is the best example of a
broadcaster which has adapted it’s content to the needs of the audience over time, as it is
currently the oldest, and at the forefront of technology. The BBC began broadcasting as the only
TV channel in 1936, and was followed by BBC Two in 1964 (ITV began broadcasting in 1955),
providing a 28 year gap where one channel by one broadcaster was enough for the audience to
needing more content (National Science and Media Museum blog, 2018), and this means that
broadcasters such as the BBC has to fill this growing gap through various channels, including
BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Three (online only), BBC Four and then the corresponding radio
channels, along with various forms of BBC News. Within these channels, we can see the niche
than Enli argues, along with Tunstall’s audience engagement theory - BBC Three is the main
example of this. In 2016, BBC Three - the BBC content stream aimed at 16-25 year olds - was
moved online, with the BBC stating “There’s clear evidence that under-25s have been watching far
less 'traditional' TV over the past two years… One of the main arguments for the move is that
younger audiences are already watching on-demand services, and do so regularly… One of the
main arguments against is that not everyone has a great broadband connection.” (BBC, 2015)

One of the major reasons that the way we consume television is changing is due to the recent
changes in technology, which has affected the youth market massively. Sørensen (2016) argues
that “smartphones, mobile technology and the growing practice of viewing and interacting with
content on multiple screens and devices are informing changes to the TV industry and the content
it produces in the United Kingdom” (Sørensen, 2016). Sørensen’s argument is supported by Henry
Jenkins’ (2006) media convergence theory, which states that new technologies connect different
platforms and redefine the environment of the media they are in (Jenkins, 2006).

Arguably the biggest technological advancement for TV has been the development of the iPhone,
and the introduction of streaming devices, taking place mainly in the past 11 years - the first
iPhone was introduced in 2007, and since then mobile technology has lead to a increase in mobile
phone sale shipments from 170 million to 1.4 billion from 2009-18 (Statista, 2018), and currently
4.57 billion people worldwide own a phone, which is predicted to increase to 4.78 billion by 2020
(Statista, 2018) - This means that the wide spread of mobile technology, with its access to the
internet has lead leading broadcasters to have to change how they share their content, and this
played a large role in BBC Three going online, as of 2015, 90% of 16-25 year olds owned
smartphones (Ofcom, 2015). Lord Hall, director general of the BBC states that “The media
landscape has changed beyond all recognition - it's more global and more competitive” and that
"Our goal, even in the face of rapid growth by our competitors, is for iPlayer to be the number one
online TV service in the UK” (BBC News, 2017). The aim to make BBC iPlayer the biggest online
TV service in the UK is a massive step forward for the future not only in television, but also in the
larger cultural and economic futures of the UK, due to the fact that younger people will be going
into the future with better access to news platforms. Edgerly's (2018) argument supports this “A
national survey of U.S. youths ages 12 to 17… finds that half of youth respondents are
characterised by patterns of news use, each distinct in how they seek out (or avoid) using new
media platforms and sources for news, and in their levels of participation.” Edgerly finds that the
main ways news is positively accessed by US youths in 2018 is via TV news and social media
sites “only TV news and nonconventional news exposure were positively related to youths”.

Streaming devices are also a major technological advancement, and another way of bringing TV
to the wider masses, and the company at the forefront of streaming is Netflix, as it isn’t a single
text platform, instead it crosses the boundaries of content. Jenner (2014) states “Netflix actually is
a perfect example of the disruption of distinctions between film, television, DVD and online video
platforms such as Vimeo or YouTube: ‘the era is characterised by interactive exchanges, multiple
sites of productivity and diverse modes of interpretation and use’.” By combining a mix of the
content Jenner describes, Netflix has started the era off streaming, which was followed by the
Google Chromecast. The Chromecast was sold as the way to access Netflix more easily in the
home, with Reed Hastings, owner of Netflix, stating "The tablet or phone is the best remote
control because you don't have to learn to use another interface” (Spangler, 2013). The
development of major streaming sites such as Netflix and devices such as Chromecast, and the
Amazon Fire Stick, means that there is now 74% of U.S. homes which have at least one
streaming device, and the mean number of streaming devices per home has surpassed the mean
number of “cable” boxes (Sky, Virgin Media etc.) (Baumgartner, 2018)

D’heer (2014) argues the changing face and rapid growth of television might not be totally
positive: “This increasingly saturated media environment potentially alters how viewers engage
with televisual media and with each other…mobile devices, such as tablets, have entered our
living rooms and altered TV’s social uses and practices…we recognize the complex nature of
physical and verbal avoidance and affiliation in a multiscreen living room. Participants personally
consume media content in the presence of other family members, which allows physical contact
but reduces the opportunities for conversation.” The negative effects that D’heer argues shows
that there are tensions around TV consumption depending on age, which may have arisen form a
difference in digital skills and competencies, with younger generations becoming more computer
literate than the last. “In this respect, we point to a digital divide in skills and competences to deal
with the collapsing of social contexts that characterises these networked communication
structures. The tension between the domestic and broader sociocultural practices becomes
prominent.” The changes in the way we access television has lead to an increase in not only the
amount of available content but consumers also relying on mobile devices, and this is proving to
be a problem for parents of younger children. A 2016 Ofcom report found that parents are
becoming more worried about the amount of time and content their children are consuming, and
this means that in the future their may be a decline, but currently there is a trend for parents
teaching their children online safety, using technical tools, supervising their children while online
and using set rules to manage internet use and content consumption, with 0% of parents of 5-15
year olds taking part in all four types of the approach (Ofcom.org.uk, 2018)

D’heer’s fears are supported by Gerbner’s Cultivation Theory (1973) which suggests that the more
one views a text, the more likely they are to believe the representation that is being portrayed.
“The concern over the consequences of violence on television. The invention and development of
technologies which permit the production and dissemination of mass mediated fictional images
seems invariably to raise in the minds of the established classes the spectre of subversion,
corruption and unrest being encouraged among children” (Gerbner, 1973) The fear that with the
development of TV comes the development of content that is unsuitable, and is harder to monitor
is a large one for parents (Ofcom.org.uk, 2018). There are big differences in the representation of
males and females in television, and one of the bigger issues is the increasing normatively of
physical and verbal aggression in the content on television. Scharrer and Blackburn (2017) state
“Men tend to approve of aggression enacted by both members of their own gender and by women
more so than women do…the study did reveal a number of significant associations among
exposure to docusoaps, perceptions of the social realism of docusoaps, and approval of physical
and verbal aggression, pointing speculatively to cultivation theory’s explanation of television’s
storytelling function enculturating viewers by helping define what is be considered “normal” and
what is not” (Scharrer and Blackburn, 2017) From D’heer, Gerbner and Scharrer and Blackburn we
can find that the fears around how the youth are consuming the media is at risk slowly becoming
a moral panic (Cohen, 1972), and the consumption of television has been known to be blamed on
youth criminality, such as in the case of the murder of James Bulger, where the two killers were
accused of being influenced by ‘Child’s Play 3’. The creation of moral panic is backed up by Hay
(1995) who argues “Our society as presently structured will continue to generate problems for
some of its members - like working-class adolescents - and then condemn whatever solution
these groups find” (Hay, 1995)

In conclusion, after arguing that the consumption of television is forever changing based on
factors such as age (5-25 years old) and technological advancement, I have found that there are
various sub factors that influence the consumption of television, and that it is as highly criticised
as it is praised. Looking to the future, Kompare (2005) argues that “it is impossible to gauge
exactly what ‘television’ will be in another decade or so… However, it is clear that the centralised,
mass-disseminated, ‘one-way’ century is largely ceding to a regime premised upon individual
consumer choice, and marked by highly diversified content, atomised reception, and customisable
interfaces… These changes around television are also part of a larger conceptual shift across all
media, as the aesthetic, technological, industrial and cultural boundaries between previously
discrete forms (text, film, broadcasting, video, and sound recordings) are increasingly blurred,
challenging established practices and paradigms.” Kompare’s theory of the future of TV shows
that the consumer will be mainly controlling what content is output, shifting from Gramsci’s theory
of cultural hegemony to a more freely ran media sphere.

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