BBC struggling to appeal to young viewers: Ofcom
Britain’s media regulator has said that the country’s main broadcaster the BBC is no longer an attractive station among the youth as many turn into rivals for better programs.
Ofcom said Thursday that the BBC was lagging behind others in Britain and elsewhere in offering enticing content on TV and radio services, saying the younger audiences were increasingly shifting toward commercial rivals and online-only offerings such as YouTube and Netflix.
The regulator criticized the BBC for its output policy, saying the corporation was “not currently doing enough, quickly enough” to reverse the current situation.
A research in Ofcom’s annual report on the BBC showed that almost 20 percent of the young people in Britain did not consume BBC content in a given week while others used the BBC material half the average for all age groups.
It said a BBC online initiative, dubbed BBC Three channel, which was specifically designed to appeal to younger viewers, is only reaching about 8% of young people every week.
BBC runs on license-fees for most of its productions and the vast majority of the public should pay £150.50 a year to be able to watch its programs on TV.
Ofcom said new technology and its ubiquitous features had a role to play in declined BBC viewership, but it insisted that commercial radio stations and ITV, BBC’s main rival in Britain, were doing comparatively better at attracting younger audiences.
“The decline in use among young people is a concern, not only because this audience group is less well served, but because young people are critical for the future relevance and success of the BBC,” said Ofcom in its report, adding, “Young people also want the BBC to take more risks and felt it was too reliant on conventional formats.”
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