Think about this when you are doing your first kids' TV upfront deals in the coming weeks: 50% of the time kids are only watching with one eye.
Half of kids nine- to 17-years-old are
looking at TV at the same time as they're fooling around on the Internet, and 17% of the time they are influenced by the
Internet in deciding what to watch on TV. More importantly, 47% say they focus their attention primarily online -- TV is a secondary attention.
No wonder experts are predicting
another flat year in terms of advertising revenue for sellers of kids' TV shows.
All this isn't all news to many kids' TV programmers -- but perhaps the level at which kids are
fumbling with their mobile phones or notebook laptops is additional info. Kids already seem distracted -- attention deficit disorders, aside. TV, the best passive media; the Internet, a more
active indulgence.
Now the distraction has grown. Already
TV networks like Nickelodeon, Disney Channel and the
Cartoon Network are knee-deep in trying to weave content and marketing around their traditional and new digital
media platforms
to make sure those who are on the Internet come back to their bigger video screens -- where the big advertising dollars still drive the day.
It's not as if video has lost its cachet. But
there is plenty of other stuff to consider - like texting and emailing friends, looking at photos on MySpace, and catching up on celebrity news. Interactive TV could have been the answer to all of
this back in 1995 -- keeping kids at bay. Interactive TV proponents still promise this -- possibly with the convergence of many entertainment devices in a couple of years.
What's a TV
programmer to do? Be everywhere, and spend more marketing dollars. But if more kids are spending lots of time with Facebook, as well as watching "Hannah Montana" or "Degrassi" -- it may not
matter that much
What's important, it seems, is to have your own rich-media social networking area - or perhaps a nice little application, or other messaging -- on Facebook or MySpace.
Take heart; the distraction will never end, and only increase in frequency: Once you have figured it out, kids will have probably moved to a new and easier Second Life, creating their own
real-life/animation stories
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