Indie bigwigs urge PSBs to rethink approach to youngs

The PSBs need to significantly increase their investment in youth-skewing content or risk their future relationship with the British public, according to a panel of production bosses at the Edinburgh TV Festival. 

The panel discussed the recent figures revealed by Ofcom that indicated 16-24-year-olds spend less than an hour a day watching broadcast TV, seven times less than those aged over 65 and less than a third of the level a decade ago. In comparison, youngsters spent 57mins a day on Tik Tok.  

Banijay UK executive chair Patrick Holland urged the PSBs to double down on “creating public service content that is specifically for younger viewers” in order to establish and evolve a relationship with the next generation.  

And Jon Thoday, managing director of Avalon, insisted PSBs should go further and “triple down”. He called on the BBC to increase its investment in BBC3 from £80m to £200m, arguing that that more investment leads to “great” content, citing the revival of the drama genre as an example. 

“Twenty years ago, drama was regarded as a sidebar, no one thought you could have commercial drama again, apart from the soaps which had been there for 30 years. But that’s all turned round now and the same thing can happen for young people; it’s about how much you spend per hour and how many hours you do. 

“You spend less you get less, and younger viewers have reduced significantly; the BBC has brought back BBC3, but bringing a channel back doesn’t increase the content spend.” 

All3Media chief executive Jane Turton agreed: “There is no greater stimulant to creating demand than investment. Look at natural history – the streamers came into the genre and now its stronger than ever before. You could say same about YA drama – the additional investment, largelys from streamers, that has acted as an accelerant. So I totally agree – further investment in younger skewing programming has to be part of it.” 

But Fatima Salaria, managing director of Naked, warned that it is the quality of the programming that attracts younger audiences, rather than the value of money spent on it, and that PSBs need to be careful not “pour it down a drain”. 

“The Apprentice isn’t a young person’s show, but its reach into young audiences is huge and it’s because of the cast, and the entertainment value. It’s because its a really good programme,” she said. 

Wonderhood boss David Abraham, called the gap between older and younger viewers is “not a generational shift, but almost like a Berlin Wall” and that young audiences’ migration to the likes of YouTube and TikTok have created a “hyper-fragmented environment”.  

Abraham also expressed concern about the future discovery of talent, as those that are popular on social media platforms don’t engage with the traditional broadcasting world. 

“They see this as a very alien world because it’s still controlled by commissioners. For me, it is almost how do these two worlds combine and none of us know,” he said. 

“PSBs have played a very important role in that [talent pipeline], but if they are reaching far fewer people every night, how will that cultural system operate in the future? If it’s just appealing to older and older people, that’s a problem,” he continued. “The fact that the PSBs are now starting to recommission formats from 10, 15, 20 years ago is a problem.” 

Pat Younge, non-executive director of Cardiff Productions, agreed with Abraham that YouTubers are used to being their own boss and “there’s a certain amount of BS that we put up that they won’t” and that the broadcasting industry’s culture needs to be looked at in order to attract online talent over to terrestrial.  

Reboots and attribution woes 

Separately, the PSBs rebooting popular old formats, such as Gladiators, Blankety Blank, Big Brother, The Big Breakfast, Changing Rooms and Survivor, was described as “profoundly depressing” by Abraham.  

“The effect of the global digital platforms is the reduction of culture and of choice and the amplification of franchises. Most of us don’t wake up in the morning with a burning mission to revisit a format from 30 or 40 years ago, we’re in this business because we feel we’ve got something to say and try something new that will drive the industry,” he said.  

Separately, Banijay UK executive chairman Patrick Holland warned that the phenomenon of viewers discovering PSB shows via streaming services such as Netflix is a “disaster”for the UK’s heritage broadcasters. “Over time, attribution just erodes and people no longer see the BBC or Channel 4 as the original broadcaster.”