Media experts surprised by survey findings.

Looking for the TV that doesn't exist, one finds that it... exists

Television executives around the world are now willing to pay up to $7,500 per hour to have someone who isn't involved with television tell them what kids, or any viewers for that matter, want to watch. In the process of explaining the future, these experts use terms like "screen-agers" and "chaos theory" while entertaining the paying listeners with pronouncements like "Most kids are doing media deconstruction while watching television" or "most television programming involves old-fashioned linear storytelling ... When you feel yourself being drawn into tension, you just change the channel." The New York Times quoted a popular TV futurist as saying, "If you watch kids changing the channel, it's not because they're bored or have a short attention span; it's because someone is inflicting programming on them." He then explained that screen-agers want the "aha" experience of "making connections across their storehouse of media memories." This expert continued, "It's watching The Simpsons and realizing that scene between Abe and Homer is a parody of Alfred Hitchcock." However, other experts, such as parents, could attest that few kids actually know who Hitchcock is!

Recently La Repubblica, Italy's second largest newspaper, ran the headline "Enough: We're Fed Up With Variety Shows" and proceeded to report that a survey had discovered What kind of television the Italian public really wants. The Palm Beach Post ran a cartoon with the caption "Lie to a pollster." Indeed, the difference between the kind of television people say they want and what they actually. watch is... the pollster.

According to the survey in the La Repubblica story, 50 percent of Italian viewers would like to watch more cultural and scientific programs. The current Italian TV schedule allocates 2.8 percent of air time to such programming. Furthermore, according to the survey, only 2 percent of Italians like to watch telenovelas and TV movies. In 1995, such programming represented 19.9 percent of the Italian TV schedule.

According to a study by Studio Fasi of Milan, Italy, in 1995 14.9 percent of the average Italian TV schedule consisted of news and information programming. This was much greater than the time allocated to sports (7.2 percent) and variety shows (3.2 percent).The viewing public did not react to this in the way one would expect from looking at the survey in La Repubblica. While 30 percent of the viewers in the survey said they preferred news and information programming, in actuality only 15.2 percent tuned in.

Moving on to culture, 50 percent of the survey respondents said they preferred cultural programs, but only 7.52 percent actually watch them. Incidentally, with 2.8 percent of the daily schedule, cultural programming is allocated more time than are mini-series (0.9 percent).

Even the samples of the two sources differ. The survey analyzed answers from 1,954 people, each of which represented 23,950 Italians. The Auditel ratings came from 2,420 people, each of which represented 22,750 Italians.

Ultimately, in the quest for something that media experts say television doesn't offer, one finds out that television is everything the public wants it to be.