BBC faces ‘lost generation’ as young viewers tune out
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Editor
| 25 October 2019

Even though it is generally serving audiences well, the BBC has marked up a very unwelcome milestone with its reach among 16-24 year-olds TV viewers dropping below 50% for first time according to broadcast regulator Ofcom’s annual report on the corporation.

Assessing the corporation’s performance over the period April 2018 to March 2019, Ofcom warned that there were signs that like many broadcasters the BBC was vulnerable to a rapidly changing media landscape and that if it fails to regain younger audiences who are increasingly tuning out of its services, the BBC may not be sustainable in its current form.

The study showed that in 2018 only 49% of young people aged 16-24 tuned into BBC TV channels in an average week, a figure that fell to 46% among males in the age group. People aged 16-34 spent an average of one hour and 12 minutes with the BBC every day – five minutes less than the previous year, and half as much time as audiences overall.

In addition, after several years of stability, the proportion of children aged 4-6 who watched the core kids’ channel CBeebies each week fell, from 39% to 34%.
Making an alarming comparison, Ofcom revealed that as the BBC iPlayer’s reach of 15-24 year olds fell from 28% to 26%, Netflix saw its younger audience increase from 56% to 66%.

Ofcom said that its findings show that the BBC must do much more to connect with today’s children and younger adults – through relevant, appealing, and well-placed content – or it could lose a generation of potential licence-fee payers.

The regulator noted that similar challenges to the shrinking younger audiences were found in its review of BBC news and current affairs. It found that younger audiences were turning away from BBC news and current affairs, increasingly using social media and news ‘aggregator’ services – such as Apple News. Among 16-24 year-olds less than a quarter (23%) watched BBC TV news during 2018, a drop of over a third in just five years. Only 8% watched current affairs across BBC TV, around half the proportion who watched five years ago. In contrast, more than three quarters now use social media for news.

In a call to action and outlining what it expected the BBC to do to rectify its failings, Ofcom called for the BBC to produce a clearly articulated plan, to address those areas that continue to raise concerns. Ofcom said that the areas of concern could be grouped in certain areas, namely: producing distinctive, innovative content that reaches younger audiences where they want to find it; broadening appeal; engaging younger audiences online; showing due impartiality; supporting other news sites; highlighting transparency.

Taking up the issues raised in the annual report on the BBC, Ofcom chief executive Sharon White, demanded that BBC must set out bolder plans to. “We also want the BBC to broaden the appeal of its news, which some viewers and listeners feel isn’t relevant to their lives. She said And the BBC must find ways to be more distinctive online, where our research shows younger people are passing it by.”

Ofcom said that it expected to see this in the BBC’s annual plan and budget setting process for 2020/21, published at the end of March 2020.