STAT, Occupation double, Indéfendable and Big Brother Celebrities are among the favorite shows of a segment of the public that seems to be neglecting Quebec television: young adults.
This is one of the highlights of an exclusive survey by the Academy of Digital Transformation (ATN), presented Wednesday at the congress of the Quebec Association of Media Productions (AQPM) in Saint-Sauveur. Conducted among 1,000 Quebecers aged 18 to 24 last March, the study aimed to explore their viewing habits.
Asked to identify the local productions they had watched in the previous three months, the majority of respondents named STAT. The popular Radio-Canada hospital daily sits at the top of the ranking reserved for fiction series with 20%.
TVA’s red bracelets (10%) complete the podium, followed by three offerings from Noovo: Club Soly (9%), Entre deux draps (8%) and Chouchou (8%). Leo (8%), Completely High School (6%), Can You Hear Me? (5%) and Plan B (5%) close out the top 10.
In reality TV, Noovo occupies four of the top five positions with Occupation double (16%), Big Brother Celebrities (13%), An almost perfect supper (10%) and Love is in the meadow (8%). TVA prevents a sweep by housing its novelty Get me out of here (9%) in the fourth echelon.
In variety, unsurprisingly, The voice wins with 11%, ahead of Infoman (10%), Live from the universe (6%), Masked singers (6%) and Revolution (6%).
Analyzed by Christine Thoër, full professor in the department of social and public communication at UQAM, the survey offered some encouraging news to the Quebec television community, which is desperately seeking to capture the attention of young adults to ensure its sustainability. Thus, a large majority (70%) of 18-24 year olds say they are “interested” in all Quebec content. And this, even if they prefer Netflix, YouTube and Disney to Crave, ICI Tou.tv and Club illico to view content online.
The reasons that motivate their interest in the fleurdelisée offer are varied. They include the desire to encourage local productions (88%) and the importance of protecting the French language (83%). The third main reason is much more practical: because their parents and siblings watch Quebec TV and want to be able to talk to them about it (77%).
On the other hand, young adults not interested in the Quebec content offer explained their lack of enthusiasm by indicating that they preferred to watch American or foreign content (79%), that they “didn’t recognize in our local star-system (63%) and because they preferred big-budget productions (61%).
The results of the study have raised a lot of skepticism among industry players working to bring young adults on board. Philippe Lamarre, president and founder of Urbania, the box behind series like L’air d’aller, recommended vigilance. “When the average age of your audience is between 55 and 60, you have to worry about audience turnover. »
To explain the presence of a title like Club Soly in the ranking of the most popular content programs with 18-24 year olds, Zita Lawson, of Encore Television, the production house behind Arnaud Soly’s offering, clarified that the comedian and his team had “carte blanche”.
This attitude was welcomed by Mathieu Lacombe, of the communication agency Rethink. “Showing young people on TV is one thing. I think we also have to speak their language. Shows like Club Soly do this well, because young people are given all the space to create the content, with references that they understand. Sometimes, taking older shows to try to speak to young people, it smells of designer sweat. It feels forced. »
In addition, the survey revealed that humor (54%) ranks first among the elements that attract young people in terms of fiction series, far ahead of suspense (44%) and action (43%).
Particularly popular this year, the AQPM convention ends on Thursday.
1. Movies (66%)2. Series (65%)3. Funny videos (38%)4. Reality TV (37%)5. Influencer videos (36%)
1. Netflix (77%)2. YouTube (55%)3. Disney (45%)4. Prime Video (41%)5. Noovo (23%)6. Craves (18%)7. HERE Tou.tv (18%)8. Club illico (11%)9. VAT website (11%)10. AppleTV (8%)
