Youth drop TV in favour of streaming

Watch TV on the InternetWatch TV on the Internet.Photo: pixabay.com

The time teenagers spent in front of traditional TV screens was halved in the eight years between 2008 to 2016. The trend was accelerated by the NRK series ‘Shame’ last autumn.

Norwegian TV viewers, aged between 12 and 19, watched an average of 114 minutes of television per day in 2008, but last year, the time was halved to 57 minutes, according to Dagens Næringsliv newspaper, based on new figures from TNS Gallup. The average American, by comparison, watched 167 minutes of TV per day in 2016.

NRK’s youth series, ‘Shame’, played an important part this autumn, when the third season drew nearly 800,000 viewers on-line. Adolescent viewing habits may affect older audiences and change the market, said chief analyst, Kristian Tolonen, to NRK news.

‘There are very few who think we will see a reversal of the trend. The big question is really how quickly it will happen’, he said.

In addition to network TV, streaming services like Netflix, TV 2 Sumo, and HBO Nordic are popular among young people. According to TNS Gallup, 74% of viewers between the ages of 20 and 29 pay for Netflix.

 

Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today