Sociologists said that the proportion of Russians who do not watch TV has almost tripled in the past five years. According to VTsIOM data, while the rate of people boycotting TV in 2018 was only 13%, this rate is now 31%. But the percentage of Internet users predictably increased. But this is not surprising. The only surprising thing about such studies is that they are still being done. It seems that the conflict between television and the Internet has long lost its meaning. Both are just tools. What is even more interesting is how consumers’ attitudes towards media content in general change, no matter where the content is published.
Yes, the times when television was disparagingly called the zombie box can already be considered historical. No one expresses themselves this way anymore; After all, we still have many dinosaurs trying to show their progress from yesterday to today. We still have many people who hang up after they finish talking on their mobile phone. It is possible. These are linguistic curiosities, so to speak. But of course there are no more boxes, and the prefix “zombie” can be used with other words. For example, “Zombophone” also sounds interesting. “Zombo Tablet” isn’t very good, there’s some phonetic nonsense here, but “Zombo Book” is incredibly organic. And it’s capable and scary and somehow, you know, sobering.
So, do you say that technologies aimed at deceiving the population on the Internet, which some users access from their phones, some from their laptops, and some from their smart TVs, do not work? What happens if the user watches on the tablet the same channels and programs of official television, which are considered the most disreputable by progressive humanity? Yes, even if an Internet user is addicted to feeding exclusively on cats, how is he any different from housewives who do not look up from cooking programs on some “Friday”? Well, if someone is stupid in some garbage stream on YouTube, isn’t it the twin brother of the person who enthusiastically follows DNA research on NTV?
What is generally interesting is not what people use to consume content, but what type of content it is, how much of it is in the average person’s life, and what it is associated with.
Well, let’s look at television first. Who is his main customer and what does he want? According to the research conducted by Mediascope at the end of 2022, the main audience of TV channels is over the age of 54 (52.5%), almost a third of the viewers between the ages of 35-54 (29.5%), and viewers between the ages of 18-34. – 11.5%, the other 6.4% falls on children aged 4-17. The average time consumers spend watching TV is 5.5 hours. By the way, ten years ago our people spent 1.5 hours less on this topic. But this is slightly less than in 2017 – then TV consumed almost six hours. The most popular channels today are “Russia-1” (26.9%), Channel One (24.9%) and NTV (19.9%). The situation was almost the same five years ago, but in a different order. The first channel was the real winner at that time, preferred by 35%. But now it is the leader among the most active age group, 18-44 years old.
A study by Otkritie Bank showed what they were watching. Cinema takes the lead; 61% of the viewers turn on the television for this purpose, 49% vote for entertainment programs with the remote control, 47% watch news, 42% watch popular science programs, 25% watch sports broadcasts and 18% watch socio-economic programs. -watches economic programs -political talk shows. Ten years ago news was first (63%), but then movies (62%), then entertainment (33%), then sports (26%), political talk shows and educational programs each accounted for 13% . public interest.
The results are clear: TV viewers are tired of the news, but they’re becoming a little more interested in politics; They, as before, prefer to be distracted by feature films and, abandoning pure entertainment, they begin to turn to science fiction and other things. documentaries. The TV audience seemed more serious, impetuous, frightening, so to speak, towards intellectuality.
What about internet users? The average time Russians spend on the Internet is 4 hours and 10 minutes. Interestingly, this figure has remained virtually unchanged over the past decade. True, there are studies according to which the average user spends all eight hours on the Internet. According to the Meltwater service, 68% of Russians read and watch news on the Internet. Moreover, their main source is social networks. In the last few years, Telegram has become a leader in this regard. 63% use the network to watch movies, cartoons, TV shows and video content from other users. The VKontakte service has now become the main service for video publishing. 49% listen to music online, 43% browse online stores, 33% use the internet for educational purposes, 36% play games. Interestingly, Odnoklassniki has become a popular platform for gamers.
According to VTsIOM, users’ internet activities are approximately evenly distributed between education and personal development (39%), music (42%), humor (37%) and recipes (36%). Internet viewers are most interested in news about country and world events (49%) and politics (42%). Meanwhile, it is curious that 77% of users who have the opportunity to read news and analysis from all over the world prefer local content, while this rate is 85% among those in the 18-24 age group. Interestingly, 48% of consumers trust news on the internet, while television news, for example, is trusted by 42%.
Results? Therefore, it is difficult to draw a conclusion from here. Everything was confused. TV has long been on the Internet, and the Internet has been on television. The consumers of both are very different. The stereotype that Internet users are smarter, more serious and more resistant to various manipulations has been out of date for a decade. News is gaining ground on the Internet, but the attitude towards it is uncritical. And they are often distracted from the news and politics by the incredible nonsense. TV works more in the background, showing people movies and entertainment programs, but the discerning viewer is increasingly choosing popular science programs and documentaries.
Multifaceted trends in the field of media content consumption are generally a feature of today. On the one hand, it seems that people are tired of the news, and on the other hand, social networks are turning into news platforms. On the one hand, the Internet offers rich opportunities for communication, education, work and self-realization with its interactivity, but on the other hand, many users turn into a silent, passive mass of media garbage consumers. On the one hand, the network requires openness, polemics and tolerance, on the other hand, the pages of ordinary users in social networks are becoming increasingly private, targeting mechanisms drive everyone into different corners, and the abuse of anonymity can turn any discussion into hell. On earth. And where we are all heading is even less clear.
The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the position of the editors.