Guy Cumberbatch, Sally Gauntlett, Victoria Littlejohns,
Samantha Woods and Cheryl Stephenson.  

2. Channel Differences

Older people achieved their highest level of representation on BBC2 - well above the average level of representation for all channels combined and almost five times the level of representation on Sky One. They comprised:

• 14% of the speaking population on BBC2

• 7% of the speaking population on BBC1

• 6% of the speaking population on Channel 4

• 6% of the speaking population on ITV

• 6% of the speaking population on Channel 5

• 3% of the speaking population on Sky One

Older people made up 8% of the population of factual programmes and older men outnumbered older women by a ratio of more than 5:2 (72% male, 28% female).

In factual television the demographics are the reverse of the real world where older females outnumber older males.

Older people were particularly under represented in prominent roles:

• 3% of major presenters were older people (97% younger)

• 0.2% of minor presenters were older people (99.8% younger)

• 9% of interviewees were older people (91% younger)

Older participants were:

• More likely to experience positive interactions (49% older versus 42% younger)

• Quite likely to be portrayed as being economically active (36% were in employment)

• More likely to be portrayed as achieving something (15% older versus 7% younger)

• Counter stereotypical portrayals of older people occurred in 9% of cases.

Other issues of age:

• Stories where age was a focus occurred with 8% of older and 3% of younger people.

• On-going health difficulties were noted in 3% of older and 0.5% of younger people.

• Older people were more likely to be portrayed as victims (9% versus 5% younger).

• Prejudice or discrimination towards older people occurred in 4% of cases.

4.  Programmes Differences: Fictional Programmes

Older people made up 6% of the fictional population and older males outnumbered older females by almost 2:1 (66% male versus 34% female).

While a greater prominence was achieved in fictional compared with factual programmes, older people did not fare any better than their overall fictional programme average:

• 6% of major roles were older people (94% younger).

• 7% of minor roles were older people (93% younger).

• 6% of incidental roles were older people )94% younger).

Positive images emerged where, for example, older people were:

• More likely to experience positive interactions (46% older, 36% younger).

• Less likely to experience negative interaction (13% older, 18% younger).

• More likely to interact with other age groups (33% versus 25%).

• Less likely to mix with their own age group (24% versus 46%).

• 40% were portrayed as economically active.  

• Counter stereotypes of older people were noted in almost one quarter (24%) of cases such as white water rafting or attending discos for young people.

Other findings were more mixed:

• Older people were far less often portrayed in sexually active roles

• 8% of older people were portrayed as heterosexual, 46% younger

• 10% of older people were in a sexual relationship, 29% younger

• Older people were more likely to be portrayed as eccentric (6% versus 1%).

• In 8% of cases older people were used by the programme makers to raise issues of prejudice or discrimination.

• But in twice as many cases (16%) older people were victims of such discrimination without any attempt to raise awareness of the issues.

5.  Trend Data

This study essentially replicated an earlier content analysis by The Communications Research Group (Older People on Television, 1998) which also covered UK Gold.  This channel was excluded from the present study since it offers very little contemporary output.  Therefore, to compare the samples, the earlier study was reanalysed to exclude the UK Gold data.  Key points from the comparison are:

In 1998 the population yielded 10% older people on television, falling to 7% in the present study.  This drop was sustained across factual programming (1998 = 10%, 1999 = 8%) and fictional programming (1998 = 8%, 1999 = 6%).

This drop was also seen across most channels:

Channel	1998	1999
BBC2	16%	14% of the populations were older people
C4	11%	6%
ITV	10%	6%
BBC1	9%	7%
C5	6%	6%
Sky One	4%	3%

Compared with the 1998 data, levels of appearance were also attenuated:

• In 1998, 13% of older people were major contributors to a programme falling to 10% in 1999.

• In 1998, 10% of older people made a minor contribution falling to 8% in 1999.

In factual programmes the 1998 data revealed 43% of older people as economically active (i.e. working) falling to 36% in 1999.  In 1998, age as an issue was raised in 7% of older cases, compared with 8% in 1999. However, examples of counter stereotyping of older people fell from 12% of cases in 1998 to 9% in 1999.  One figure did not change: both in 1998 and 1999 some 15% of portrayals involved stories of achievement by older people.

In the case of fictional programming the proportion of older people portrayed as economically active fell from 52% in 1998 to 40% in 1999.  One of the few positive differences was in the incidence of counter stereotypes behaviour which stood at 12% of characters in 1998 but rose to 24% in 1999.  

Overall, the comparison data offers little to challenge concerns that older people are considerably under represented and even marginalised on television.  It is true that one week samples are small to detect tiny trends reliably, but the two snapshots of broadcasting confirm a rather gloomy picture only mitigated by a generally positive image when older people manage to appear.

Conclusion

The under representation of older people on television is a cause for particular concern.  Older people contributed a mere 7% to the television population in this sample - one third of the real world figure of  21%.

Moreover this under representation is compounded by a gender imbalance where older men outnumber older women on television by two to one such that older women are almost invisible citizens.

The television population reveals a strong clustering of people in the 25-44 age band (twice that of the real world) who from these data should not be planning a career in this business much beyond this.  We cannot be sure that the two snapshots have captured a genuine deterioration in the role of older people over time.  But taken together they certainly reveal the irony that the people who watch the most television (i.e. older people) are among the most excluded from it and must confirm suspicions that the third age has yet to touch broadcasting.

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