Surban youths leading the media revolution

The findings have been supported by another Synovate survey, entitled Young Asians, which was conducted from October to December last year. It surveyed 885 Thai youths aged between 15 and 24 along with youths in 11 other countries in the region.

According to the survey, Thai youths spend almost 12.8 hours a day using media, behind only Malaysian youths, who spend about 12.9 hours a day.

The average media consumption of Asian youths is 9.7 hours per day. Youths in China, Singapore and Hong Kong spend 10.4, 11.2 and 12.2 hours a day, respectively.

TV and the Internet are the key media consumed by urban Thai youths. They spend about 3.1 hours a day surfing the Internet and 5.7 hours watching TV. They also spend 0.9 hours reading newspapers, 0.8 hours with magazines, 1.3 hours listening to the radio and 1.1 hours enjoying home entertainment via DVDs, VCDs and videos.

The average Asian youth spends 2.8 hours a day with the Internet, four hours watching TV, 0.7 hours reading newspapers, 0.6 hours enjoying magazines, 0.9 hours lis¬tening to the radio and 0.8 hours watching DVDs, VCDs and videos.

"The findings also show that about 94 per cent of young urban Thais own a mobile phone while the same group spends an average of over 21 hours each week accessing the Internet," said Steven Britton, managing director of Synovate Thailand.

It was also revealed that media consumption across greater Bangkok had increased, with more young Thais watching terrestrial TV this year (92 per cent) compared to 2007 (90 per cent). More young urban Thais were also going online this year (84 per cent), up from 79 per cent.

Young Thais are inseparable from their mobile phones and when it comes to features, sending text mes¬sages was the most widely used (76 per cent). Accessing mobisodes, a new feature that allows mobile users to see clips of TV shows, is becom¬ing increasingly popular with both young Thai males (34 per cent) and females (47 per cent).

When it comes to online activi¬ties, more than twothirds of young urban Thais access the Internet in search of information, general online browsing and interactively commu¬nicating online through email and chat services. Close to threequarters (72 per cent) use search engines while more than half (64 per cent) download music and videos online.

For urban Thai youths, multitasking is the norm across mixed media, so targeting and catching their attention require more than just television.