YOUNG ADULTS AND VIEWING HABITS OF VIDEO CONTENT

Abstract

Ever since its transformation into a modern media system, traditional television has had a huge challenge ahead to provide the content capable of keeping and attracting digital natives on the Internet. A prerequisite for the strategy development is familiarity with this population’s viewing habits and, in particular, their needs based on the condition that the content should be available at any place at any given time. The aim of this research was to use basic descriptive statistics and quantitative analysis regarding the population of young adults in Serbia, to recognise current trends and affinities related to relevant content, devices and platforms used for following, along with the duration length of their contact with the content, binge-watching and especially – if at all and where they follow it live and delayed. For this research, two surveys were conducted among current and former students of two Belgrade Faculties, which indicated the trend of increasing presence on digital video streaming platforms, particularly on YouTube platform for sharing and video streaming, where they followed classic formats, foreign series and movies, but also UGC (user-generated content), while on social networks they were mostly drawn to short video forms, especially on Instagram. On the Serbian media public service OTT RTS Planeta, domestic action series and comedies are followed. However, while following feature serial programmes, the majority of survey respondents did not watch only one episode, but more of them continuously. Bearing in mind the growing presence on video streaming platforms and social networks, and the necessity for short formats and delayed content viewing, modern media systems should reinforce their presence where young adult population tends to be - by motivating them to follow live content and by bringing them to their platforms where live TV channel streaming is available.