You Know It's Over for the Nets When...

...only one in four 12-34-year-olds can name the Big 4 networks.

Steven L....

By any economic standards of "bigness," you would be wrong.

Either people are that clued out or they've become that dumb.

JacquesZMonkey...

I'd hardly call that a bad thing.

I can name them, but I rarely brag about it.

EGTea...

It could just be that there's more competition, more choices? When there are
hundreds of channels catering to every taste, why should you care to know
about the ones you don't watch?

There used to be just one telephone company in America. Can you name the top
four today, without going to a search engine? If you can't, would it be fair
to call you clued out or dumb?

Steven L....

I agree. The only reason I knew the Big 3 networks as a kid, is because
back then--there were only 3 big networks! And (except for public
television) they had all the nationwide broadcast programming. Today,
even a small cable channel like like Discovery is available all over the
country.

For kids today to know the "Big 4 networks" is like them knowing the
"Big 4 Internet Service Providers." Who knows and who cares? Today,
that's a Trivial Pursuit question.

More to the point, why *should* kids be expected to know this stuff? The
knowledge is useless to them.

Study: Only One in Four Teens Can Name Broadcast Networks
TV Viewing Fourth Most-Popular Activity, Behind Web, Friends, Movies

By Abbey Klaassen
Published: May 15, 2006

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- For the week of the broadcast network upfront
presentations, Bolt Media hopes this stat delivers a bullet to TV: Only
one in four 12- to 34-year-olds can name all four major broadcast
networks: ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox.

Teens may not be able to name the big four, but they know MTV, Cartoon
Network and Comedy Central.

The finding comes via an online poll conducted by Bolt Media, a
10-year-old Web site that six weeks ago relaunched itself as a place
for users to upload videos and photos. About 400 members responded to
the questions, including one that asked how respondents spent their
free time.

altec3220...

I am not sure I would consider this a very reliable source...

me...

yep...whenever one of those online poll popups appear, I purposely
answer wrong or goofy answers, just to screw with them.

videonovels...

The poll may be unscientific, but I bet a Gallup or Nielsens poll would
show similarly results. When you have cable (and most do), the
networks like nbc, cbs, etcetera are just another "channel" on the
dial. It all blurs together into a single whole.

The most popular activity? That would be surfing the Internet, which
84% said they did during their idle periods. Hanging out with friends

Steven L....

Online polls are worthless. Obviously people for whom surfing the
Internet is a favorite activity are more likely to respond to online
polls. Someone who never surfs the Internet except for business reasons
isn't going to respond to an online poll at all.

came in second at 76%, watching movies third at 71% and TV viewing
fourth at 69%. The five most-watched TV networks were Fox, Comedy
Central, ABC, MTV and Cartoon Network.

"There's a massive movement going on in people under 30 and how they
spend their media time," said Bolt President Lou Kerner, who once upon
a time was a cable analyst on Wall Street before leaving to run TV.com
and then Bolt. "Our audience spends lots of time on net, creating their
own media."

He shrugs off the idea that the poll, because it was based on Bolt
members who tend to be heavy online users, wasn't of value. He charges
the results are representative of teens who go on sites like Bolt or
YouTube -- exactly the kinds of rabid media consumers sophisticated
marketers are interested in reaching.

"We're finally at an inflection point where advertisers are tired of
spending more and more and getting less and less, particularly as it
relates to youth," he said. "You're going to see a much broader
embracement of the Internet as a distribution mechanism to get their
shows out there."

He criticized NBC's decision to pull the "Saturday Night Live" "Lazy
Sunday" clip off of YouTube and praised Fox for its viral marketing of
"Family Guy," which went on to be a cash cow in DVD sales. Mr. Kerner's
advice to the networks as they look to build buzz for the new fall
season?

"Take your clips and put them out there on these different sites. Let
the kids take the codes and put them into their social media profiles
so they can show their friends and their friends can collect that as
well," he said. "That viral marketing is best possible thing they can
do to drive more people to the broadcast channel or their own dot-com
site."