Exam question 3

The topic at hand has a great impact on the television which is shown from my research, children are more likely to use newer media devices instead of old devices such as Television or radio. This has increased the likeliness of them owning a media device, most commonly a tablet or smartphone. The fact that children’s access to these devices have increased for children between the ages 5-15 they are using the devices to access media such as YouTube and Netflix and social media. According to my primary research I had asked parents questions about their children’s media uses and how they prefer to use their devices. One of my questions were ‘Does your child prefer YouTube or Television’ and the statistics from parents who answered showed that 76% of children chose YouTube over television and means that children aren’t watching television as much as previous years. YouTube allows the viewer to view any content they desire at any time, unlike television which has a set schedule of shows. This is slowly becoming the television for the younger generation because they are watching others and uploading their own content and it is becoming the common platform for entertainment for children, which is losing viewers and money for the television sector, the evidence for this is from the BARB website which shows viewers have been decreasing over the last three years.

In addition to the problem affecting television is that TV shows are being watched on illegal streaming sites and they are also available on YouTube and there is no regulations on YouTube to prevent children watching content which is not suitable for their age. This is proven to be affecting the Television sector, according to my research on the BARB website it shows that since 2015 the audience viewing percentage has been decreasing, even in the months which would most commonly be the period that children would watch it most. In may the viewing has decreased by a total of 1.17%, in august they have dropped 1.4% and in January by 0.69%. From conducting a focus group, I had concluded the primary reasons why children prefer YouTube over Television, they can be split into to two categories accessibility and entertainment.  The children which preferred it for accessibility reasons said they can access it in their rooms or can watch it anytime and do not need to wait for a scheduled show. From looking at the most recent 


The Ofcom 2016 article suggest that the YouTube has become popular with children of all ages, mainly older child. 37% of 3-4 year olds and 87% 12-15 year olds using the YouTube website or application, this could suggest the causation of television becoming less popular for children. Parents from my survey say that they prefer YouTube over Television, this could also be the reason for parents concerns for online safety to increase, because within YouTube there are no regulations to protect the child unlike television which has the watershed. If the child is seeing innaproriate content and violence they could assume the world is full of negative and bad people, this is linked to cultivation theory which is also called bad world syndrome.