Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

82% of Kids in 'Netflix Only' Homes Have No Idea What Commercials Are (exstreamist.com)

Posted by msmash on from the weird-studies dept.

Two anonymous readers share a report: We decided to survey parents of young children (below 10 years old) to see how many kids in "Netflix only" homes knew what commercials are, compared to those homes who watch regular television. We surveyed 100 parents (50 Netflix-only homes, 50 normal television homes), here were their responses: 82% of kids in Netflix only homes don't know what commercials are. 38% of kids in regular television homes don't know what commercials are.

36 of 301 comments (clear)

  1. Well... by Parker+Lewis · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The same was true for cable TV when I was kid.

    1. Re:Well... by swb · · Score: 2, Insightful

      What? Cable TV was almost never "commercial free" except for maybe 5 minutes at the dawn of the cable channel industry.

      My first sighting of cable TV in suburban Minneapolis showed commercials on the "cable" channels.

      And of course re-transmitted over the air channels always had commercials because it was just a closed-circuit feed of the OTA signal.

    2. Re:Well... by Parker+Lewis · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Can you realize that maybe we were kids in a different time. When cable TV started the appeal was: 1 - you'll pay to watch commercials free TV; 2 - better programs. Now we have none.

    3. Re:Well... by StormReaver · · Score: 2, Informative

      What? Cable TV was almost never "commercial free" except for maybe 5 minutes at the dawn of the cable channel industry.

      The "premium" Cable TV channels (HBO, Cinemax, etc.) were indeed commercial free for some time, at least in the market where my family was served (SouthernCalifornia). That was one of the major draws of watching movies on Cable versus broadcast TV. I don't remember how long it took for commercials to appear, but (according to my infallible memory), it seemed like a number of years.

    4. Re:Well... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 3, Funny

      The girls in the seventh grade thought I came from a "poor" family because we didn't have cable to watch MTV and we didn't own an Apple ][ computer.

    5. Re:Well... by Neuronwelder · · Score: 3, Informative

      In the 1980's Cable was free of commercials!! You paid for the service and they gave you no commercials in return for your money.. Then endless unregulated greed came to town.. Yes folks! You now get 1000's of channels (of duplicates). I wonder if people caught up with this trick?... On the other hand: If you offered 40 commercial free channels (Of your choice.), it would be plenty for $20.00 bucks a month. Save your bandwidth for cable games, for people who want to pay extra!!

    6. Re:Well... by sudden.zero · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I beg to differ. I have many Beta and VHS tapes of the first days of Cable TV, and there are no commercials, at least not things other than shows, on any of the tapes. There were advertisements for other shows on MTV, but there aren't any ads for things like Food, Electronics, etc. They had what were called shorts, and these were clever little cartoons in-between shows, but not actual advertisements.

    7. Re:Well... by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 4, Informative

      The premium TV channels are still commercial free (except for some between-program ads for other shows/movies on the same channel; which are primarily used to fluff out movie times so they start/end at roundish numbers.)

      --
      Your ad here. Ask me how!
    8. Re:Well... by sheramil · · Score: 2
      DISK SYSTEM? You kids are so privileged these days, it makes me livid. When I was a child we had to scour the streets for scrap paper to make punch cards which we'd punch with out own teeth before humbly submitting them to the local university to be run through their MONECS machine. AND they never showed us the output, so we had to listen at the window as the line printer clacked away and try to guess what it was doing.

      Disks! Pffft!

    9. Re:Well... by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 2

      You're quite mistaken here.

      CATV, or Community Antenna TeleVision, was literally exactly that: Effectively a big long antenna that allowed reception of channels that were otherwise out of your geographical reach, and this concept was later extended to bring "superstations" like WGN and WTBS to more markets than just their home market. Nonetheless, these channels were never without commercials until the concept was even further extended to include content that wasn't broadcast anywhere and could only be seen with a subscription, at which point channels like HBO became a thing, and THAT would have had no commercials.

      Nonetheless, cable did in fact start with commercials. Channels like HBO eventually became tiered so you had to pay an additional fee, (by the way, until the 80's when congress passed a law saying otherwise, it was legal to receive pay channels without paying) but they remained commercial free.

  2. Good or not? by Calydor · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Without having commercials to teach you that companies consider you a never-ending open wallet, and that they WILL lie to you to get your money, will these Netflix-only kids grow up to be or more less naive about the honesty of other people and companies?

    --
    -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
    1. Re:Good or not? by MightyYar · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I have the same worry with my kids, who don't even know how to control the FIOS part of the TV. But I also find the irony of wondering if television commercials are good for kids quite amusing.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    2. Re:Good or not? by El+Cubano · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Without having commercials to teach you that companies consider you a never-ending open wallet

      You must not watch very many recent movies or television shows. They movies/shows have become the commercials: product placement.

      In same cases, the movies have essentially become mildly entertaining infomercials for kids (e.g,. the Lego movies). In other cases, the movie is a way to get kids to want the inevitable avalanche of associated merchandise. Kids didn't need commercials to know that they wanted the Frozen lunch box or the Cars backpack. To quote the wise Yogurt, "merchandising, it's all in the merchandising" (you will have to imagine the funny accent).

    3. Re:Good or not? by Karlt1 · · Score: 2

      It depends on when you were a kid. I was a college student in the 90s. But kids growing up in the 90s - early 2000s had some quality animated television that ages pretty well - Batman:TAS and the related D.C. Shows, Animaniacs, DuckTales, Pinky and the Brain, Tiny Toons, etc.

    4. Re:Good or not? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I found with my kids, they actually just seemed to want to less stuff than a lot of kids their age.

      My kids are the same. I asked them what they wanted for Christmas, and they said they already had nice laptops and phones, and didn't really need anything else. When I was a kid, my "wanted" list filled several pages.

    5. Re:Good or not? by choovanski · · Score: 2

      My favorite show as a kid was The Transformers. If we're to be honest it was first and foremost a half hour commercial for the Hasbro toy line. This is nothing new.

    6. Re:Good or not? by swillden · · Score: 3, Interesting

      My favorite show as a kid was The Transformers. If we're to be honest it was first and foremost a half hour commercial for the Hasbro toy line. This is nothing new.

      The reason Pebbles, daughter of Fred and Wilma Flinstone, was a girl rather than a boy was because the producer noted that girl dolls sell better than boy dolls. That was 1962. There's nothing new here.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    7. Re:Good or not? by Calydor · · Score: 2

      iTunes gift cards and Steam gift cards will go a LONG way today.

      --
      -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
    8. Re:Good or not? by HeckRuler · · Score: 2

      Imagine if you will, a society that successfully eliminates con-men for a time. They have a "tough on lies" stance, or lock down the currency, or no one has anything to steal. Whatever reason, you have a generation of people who have never been flim-flammed, cheated, lied to, stolen from, and/or welshed. And then things change, as they do, and now con-men are introduced to the populous. They are liars in a society full of trust. Imagine that clusterfuck.

      So, is the inverse true? Let's say we had some sort of sanctioned thieves guild. Government employees who were paid to try and swindle money away from you. Hopefully without actually taking your money. Do you think that society would be "easy pickings" for con-men?

      It might be tempting to kill all the germs around you child. Or to protect them from liars and cheats. Or to protect them from themselves when they want to do something risky. But raising kids is a difficult tightrope of balancing protection and experience. If your kids never see any ads and are never told that the smiling people aren't quite what they appear, they're in for a world of hurt when you release them into the real world.

  3. I've forgotten too by hawguy · · Score: 5, Informative

    I haven't forgotten commercials entirely, but I've forgotten what they are like, and they are super annoying. Last time I stayed in a hotel, I flipped on TV and tried to watch a show -- I didn't make it past the first half of the show before I flipped off the TV and went to my laptop to watch Netflix because I couldn't stand the ads.

    1. Re:I've forgotten too by CrashNBrn · · Score: 2

      Aye. Everytime we visit family, The Television(s) are rarely off. I can barely stand it. Even before we got rid of cable - 95%+ of our TV viewing was DVR'd and manually skipped commercial breaks.

  4. Only Comment by darkain · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The only comment on the article's page is very accurate: "META: this article is a commercial for Netflix."

  5. I call BS by sjbe · · Score: 2

    We surveyed 100 parents (50 Netflix-only homes, 50 normal television homes),

    So an incredibly non-scientific tiny sample size, not at all representative of the population at large.

    38% of kids in regular television homes don't know what commercials are.

    I call bullshit on this one. There is no way you can actually watch cable TV and not know what a commercial is. Even with a DVR you'll still see them.

    1. Re:I call BS by pesho · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I call bullshit on this one. There is no way you can actually watch cable TV and not know what a commercial is. Even with a DVR you'll still see them.

      Keep in mind that we are talking about kids under ten. If nobody explained to them what a commercial is it is very likely that they see it as normal TV show.

  6. On the other hand.. by ddtmm · · Score: 4, Insightful

    100% of kids in Netflix-only homes know what bit torrent is.

    1. Re:On the other hand.. by ichthus · · Score: 4, Funny

      And, 100% of kids in BitTorrent-only homes think they know what Netflix is.

      --
      sig: sauer
  7. Stats? by dogbert_2001 · · Score: 2

    How do you get 57% and 5% from a sample of 50?

    1. Re:Stats? by Agent0013 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      50 parents. We are not told how many kids were in the study.

      --

      -- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
  8. Almost sounds like my kids by Agent0013 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    My daughter has lived her six years with no cable television so far. While watching the Olympics last year on over the air signals she found the commercials to be her favorite part. When you never get to see them they are new and cool I guess.

    --

    -- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
  9. Kids shows are commercials by KalvinB · · Score: 2

    They may not know what the term "commercial" is but they're endlessly exposed to commercials. The entire basis of kids programming is to sell toys.

    --
    Work Safe Porn
  10. YouTube is filled with ads... by Dzimas · · Score: 4, Informative

    YouTube videos are smothered in ads and kids experience them all the time. Netflix shows are also rife with subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) product placements. Live action shows feature massive luxury homes, Macbooks everywhere, fancy cars and shiny mobile phones. All that stuff acts to normalize expectations. It is brilliant and very effective marketing.

  11. The scary part by pesho · · Score: 3, Informative
    It could be just me, but I wouldn't worry so much about the kids on Netflix not knowing what a commercial is. You would kind of expect that. What worries me is that

    38% of kids in regular television homes don't know what commercials are

    . I am sure these kids will grow up and learn what a commercial is, but considering the amount of commercial on American TV it is hard to believe that they have not been heavily exposed to those.

  12. Alternative headline? by asylumx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    38% of kids in regular television homes don't know what commercials are

    Isn't that the more surprising figure? 2/5 kids in a typical home (which has a TV which children watch ~24hrs/week) don't know what a commercial *is*. Oh, I see, the question was to the parents, "Do your kids know what commercials are?" -- This is a survey on parents' opinion about what their kids 'know'. The headline maybe should read "82% of Exstreamist readers who are parents in netflix-only homes think their kids don't know what commercials are" because technically that's all they've indicated.

    1. Re:Alternative headline? by Syphonius · · Score: 2

      Here's the scary question for that stat:

      Assuming the number is accurate (for some values of accurate), do they not know what a commercial is because they have never seen one or because they cannot differentiate the commercial from the show they are watching?

  13. Re:Limited media experience by Whorhay · · Score: 2

    Commercials on Youtube??? What kind of Philistine doesn't use adblock or whatever. I don't think I've seen a commercial on Youtube within this decade that wasn't actually the content I was looking for.

  14. Depends where you Travel To by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 2

    I might turn the hotel television on once or twice in a month. Television is unwatchable these days.

    It depends on where you travel to. US television is indeed unwatchable due to the ad breaks but if you happen to visit Europe and they have the BBC channels those are entirely ad free and even the commercial UK channels only have 2 breaks per 1 hour programme (or one per 30 minute programme).