Guardian: Loss of the "networked generation"
Ofcom's "The Communications Market 2006 - Overview"

One thing Ofcom seems to be good at - apart from annoying people - is publishing surveys, presumably because there's no need to tell anyone what to do and it looks good if you are doing something. Anyway, this survey has attracted attention because of the claim that 16-24 year olds are watching much less television than older people.

To quote from Ofcom's conclusions: "There is also evidence of a significant difference in communications usage patterns between young adults and the general population: for example, 16-24 year olds spend on average 21 minutes more time online per week, send 42 more SMS text messages, but spend over seven hours less time watching television".

This statement seems to conflict with the claim that 16-24 year olds prefer (for example) spending time with online communities like MySpace and Bebo as opposed to watching television, because this statement suggests that the 16-24 group are only spending 21 minutes more time online by comparison with the seven hours less time watching television.

So what's the big deal in this? Put simply, modern television in all its forms doesn't seem to be appealing to 16-24 year olds at all, and looking at the current state of the major channels it's not too hard to see why.

BBC One in recent times has been trying to be very worthy (and often cheap) with docusoaps such as Super Vets and Airport as well as the usual EastEnders, Casualty, etc., together with adult drama such as Silent Witness; there seems to be a gulf between CBBC at teatime and peaktime programming that isn't specifically aimed at 16-24 year olds (Neighbours excepted).

BBC Two has lost most of its original comedy to BBC Three and as a consequence ended up with the highest average age group for a terrestrial channel, though it is now taking steps to change this. ITV1 these days appeals to hardly anyone of any age group outside of Corrie and Emmerdale; both of which again are popular with older age groups.

That leaves Channel 4 which has its all-important Big Brother (that's in gentle decline), Hollyoaks and some piecemeal programming (usually in late slots) aimed at 16-24 year olds, though there is the daytime T4 strand which is both dull and heavily patronising plus seems to be based on the likes and dislikes of a stereotypical teenager circa 1998.

Channel Five doesn't seem to have the budget to properly compete for this age group but it does at least have a go. BBC Three is specifically meant to serve the 18-24 group and justify the licence fee at the same time, but ends up showing lots of repeats because the licence fee is being spread too thinly across all the new BBC services.

That leaves the music channels which now tend to play less music than they used to, as well as Sky One, etc., which are heavily reliant on US imports therefore technically literate 18-24 year olds often end up choosing to download episodes using BitTorrent instead.

All things considered it's no surprise why 18-24 year olds find so little on mainstream television that personally appeals to them nowadays, though there appears to be no real reason why broadcasters can't produce content that is popular with this age group; the reasons for not doing so superficially seem to be financial and/or a lack of imagination.