Twitter posts are pointless, ads don’t work and music should be free. These are some of the striking claims making waves among media executives and investors from the pen of a 15-year-old intern at Morgan Stanley.
Matthew Robson was asked by the investment bank’s European media analysts to describe the media habits of himself and his friends. The ensuing report was published with the caveat that it was not claiming representation or statistical accuracy.
The results have caused some raised eyebrows in the media world as well as some serious concern, as some sectors come out with very bearish analysis.
Though many teenagers do not have the income to get advertisers clamoring for their pocket money, their habits can be seen a leading indicator for future media, the Morgan note said.
Teenagers are consuming more media, but in entirely different ways and are almost certainly not prepared to pay for it, according to Robson.
For Free Without Ads
The under 20s are shunning traditional radio for Web sites that stream music for free without ads, such as last.fm, he wrote. The users can choose what they want to listen to instead of listening to the presenters’ picks, he added.