Paul Metz
C&R Research

Thanks for your feedback on our new report. You’re right to meet a lot of these facts with skepticism – that’s the whole point of the report! As the media universe expanded, the industry made big assumptions about teens. This report corrects some of those assumptions.

More to your point (and headline) about bias: you’re right that research MUST be looked at in the context of who puts it out. This is one of the reasons there’s so much hype on teens! Numerous brands, agencies and publications rely on the “teens are alien” theme to be relevant. Yes, Nielsen is an integral part of the “traditional media ecosystem.” But the world is bigger now. Our clients evolved to be more than TV companies and so have we, meaning we’re now an integral part of not just traditional media, but also new media. Our clients pay us to give them the facts and provide third-party guidance in a fragmented media world: not to be champions of one medium over another. We’re fortunate to be able to look at the world holistically rather than be wed to the successes or failures of one particular medium or demographic segment. To get a better sense for Nielsen’s breadth, check out our insights blog at http://www.nielsenwire.com.

Now, a couple of thoughts on your hypotheses around some of the realities we’ve put forth (though I’ll mostly leave it to your readers to discuss):

TV: “TV might be on but are they really watching?”
Great question – and we address that skepticism some in the paper in the section on advertising. Yes, teens tend to be less attentive to television than adults, but only by about 16%. And when they do see a TV ad? They are 44% more likely to like it.

On “one in four read a newspaper”: You’re spot on – this high number suggests that today’s teens aren’t necessarily delineating between print and online. In some ways, maybe we shouldn’t either. Asked whether, on a typical day, they read “a daily newspaper,” it’s likely that some of today’s teens are including their visits to online news sites – which are quite popular with teens. In the U.S., more than 60% of teens visit news sites (not in the paper).

On Radio – 16% is just the figure for those counting it as a PRIMARY source and another 21% say it’s their secondary source. It’s true that the Internet and MP3 players have become the most important sources of music for this generation, but that’s the case for most age groups. If this seems to be positive spin, I offer that, for an industry that many suspect otherwise dead, the combined 37% relying on radio as either primary or secondary IS a positive bit of information: as evidenced by radio trade coverage of the news. Your broader point on music discovery is important one. Certainly the PC is playing an important role here, but teens do still get music information on the radio, though. Our global survey of teens (the same that discussed primary/secondary sources) shows that radio, PC and TV all play about as important a role as one another in music discovery, today (not included in the report).

Thanks very much for giving the new report a read, for your thoughtful critique of the themes and for sharing it with your audience. For you and your readers I hope that it is a helpful, level-setting collection of insights that, taken on the whole, reminds us that teens are much more normal than some expect.

Though not alien, this segment deserves forums of focused attention as any demographic group does, so please keep up the great work exploring this audience at Ypulse.

Nic
The Nielsen Company

Newspapers charge more for print ads, though, and perhaps the researcher should have tried to distinguish for that reason.