It’s the audiences! Yes, in the end of the day it’s the audiences we are working for!

Building relations with audiences is two-fold. First and foremost, it is “know your audiences”. Know who are the people who watch you. Know who are the people who reach out to you on digital. What do they need, what are they interested in – and deliver! The other aspect is to use the potential of audiences to be your content creators. But to achieve this a media would need to build trust with its audiences and users.

For us, the Annual Conferences of CIRCOM Regional have long been a platform to talk about our viewers and users. Is it generations that we have to understand? Or maybe is it behavioural analysis and consumer motivation that we have to deal with? In any case, it would be about our remit as public service media.

In 2019 Ilinka Todorovski spoke about the connection between journalists, authors, content creators and the audiences. At the Annual Conference in Novi Sad, Serbia, hosted by RTV - Radio Television of Vojvodina, she raised the “listen to us” issue, that is to say are media managers attentive enough to viewers and users` opinion about media. Being the ombudsperson for RTVSLO – Radio Television Slovenia at the time Ilinka Todorovski showed how feed back from audiences can be impetus for creativity, even reshape content as a result of constructive criticism, complaints, questions from audiences. Her speech put under the spotlight the need the media to maintain effective bond with their audiences.

Call them GenY, or name them Millennials – it is all about the people who in the beginning of the new century were about to become the backbone of the society. In 2017 during the Annual Conference, hosted by RTP in Ponta Delgada, we explored up close these audiences. While being the driving force in the economy the Millennials had their own patterns of consuming media. Thomas Grond, Project Coordinator at EBU, João Pedro Galveias, Director of Multimedia, RTP, Portugal, and Esben Seerup, Editorial Director of TV2/Fyn, Denmark outlined these patterns in a session titled “Millennials: The Lost Generation?” (sorry, Gertrude Stein, just borrowing your famous definition:).

Next to the Millennials we reached out to a segment even more important and difficult to attract. Well, you got it right – it’s the Kids audience. In 2019 at the Annual Conference in Novi Sad, Vojvodina, Serbia the Director of Rai Kids Luca Milano spoke about how they do it in Italy to provide children with attractive and valuable content on several platforms. Watch Luca Milano’s presentation of transmedia storytelling for kids and youngsters:

However, with all the respect, love, care and attention to kids, for media young audiences 18-25 have always been the preferred target group to address. Following a loose generational stratification we focused on GenZ in several forums. In 2017 Hubert Lacroix, CEO of CBC, laid out the Canadian approach to attracting young audiences. “What they do once you have them in your reach? What they watch, how they connect? TV is not the event of the day. You put your platforms together and you lead with digital”, concluded Hubert Lacroix, pointing out to one more positive – thus you are transforming your employees in to the digital future.

Acknowledging the importance ofreaching out to young audiences Sweden’s SVT has planned and is gradually executing a strategy to engage with 20-29 olds. At the Annual Conference 2025, hosted by 3Cat, Catalonia, Spain, Jessica Wennberg, programme manager at SVT spoke about the meticulous journey Swedish local TV stations embarked on to create strong bonds with this target audience. In her presentation Jessica followed the whole process – from analysis to set up the right approach to finding the right formats and tonality to evolving changes in the newsroom to adapt to the new communication realities. Sometimes you have to let reporters loose … and have brave editors who would take risks and approve unusual, however worthy content.
Watch Jessica Wennberg’s presentation on how SVT's local newsrooms work to reach a younger audience:

At the Annual Conference in Donostia-San Sebastian in the Basque country, Spain, Nella Etkind of Seen.tv shared 5 tips how to make a video going viral. She delivered an emotional case study how to put together a set of existing creative tools in order to come up with engaging content which has the potential to attract millions of followers and billions (yes, you got it right!) of views. View Nella Etkind’s presentation on getting “the right stories, in the right format, on the right platforms, created with the right strategy, and the right workflows”.

Yet, there is an even bigger challenge – Generation Alpha, those born after 2010! The youngest audience, so far! For them, being connected 24/7 is innate way of living. At the 2024 Annual Conference, hosted by TVP in Poznań, Poland, Satu Keto, Innovation Lead at Yleisradio’s Technology & Development, delivered a keynote which presented Generation Alpha as deeply rooted in the “Era of Artificial Intelligence and Algorithms”. For Alphas “The funnier – the better”, suggested Satu Keto while adding to this the importance of platforms. For the GenX a question remained – what is Skibidi (toilet?) on Tik Tok and why it is so popular? (Hey, how about PSM values?!) Watch Satu Keto journey with Gen Alpha:

The following year we got a completely different picture. At the Annual Conference in Barcelona Matias Ramos and Regina Arenas from the Innovation & Knowledge team of 3Cat (CIRCOM Regional member station which hosted the Annual Conference in 2025) spoke about the Alpha’s, the generation that is not so much fascinated by technology, more they are young people who need to express themselves. Also, they turned out to be staunch community creators. The Alpha’s DNA is “They live and breathe technology but seek real world interaction”. This generation is technically savvy but they also reach out to the reality that surrounds them. Immediacy is their culture. They are open minded and less stereotyped. The Internet and technologies enable them to be in contact with many realities. The Alpha’s are globalized, they live with diversity, manage and communicate emotions and adopt eco-friendly way of living. They are used to learn in digital environments through visuals and gamification. About 65 million young people in Europe belong to Gen Alpha. Watch Matias Ramos and Regina Arenas of 3Cat, Catalonia on the Gen Alpha’s DNA and find out some quite interesting observations and conclusions:

Beyond the generational approach at CIRCOM Regional we have always been focused on content. The focal point of utmost importance is young audiences’ perception of news. Quality journalism the way middle age people see it – does it work for the 35’s under? Prof. Dr. Alexandra Borchardt, author of the 2022 EBU News Report provided an encompassing view of young audiences and their attitude to news. Prof. Borchardt took part in a dedicated session during the Annual Conference in Galway, Ireland, hosted by TG4. Sophia Smith Galer – reporter with versatile experience in audiovisual media and famous Irish podcaster Blindboy helped shape the vision for successful communication with young people.

During our 2025 Annual Conference we went beyond the generational approach to viewers and consumers and looked into an emerging practice – making “easy to understand news” in order to bond with new audiences. Anna Matamala, professor at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, presented ENACT - a new international project to develop easy to understand news for broadcast media and digital platforms. This type of communicating content helps to reach out to people with difficulties in comprehending information. They could be persons with disabilities, but also migrants and people using or studying various languages. By coming up with easy to understand news in addition to news content for general consumption the media diversify their audiences and get expanded reach. This also brings about more versatile media environment. Watch Anna Matamala’s presentation on how to make easy to understand news for new audiences:

Recently a disturbing trend have been on the rise – the news avoidance in general and in particular the young audiences avoiding news. The Annual Conference in Donostia-San Sebastian, hosted in 2023 by EITB - the Basque Radio and Television, Spain, began with in-depth analysis of this bond on the verge of breaking down. Konrad Collao of the media consultancy company Craft laid bare why quality journalism “is not working anymore” with young people. Simple fact, but are there simple recipes? – Is it generational problem? Is it the nature of content? Maybe it is the usage pattern? Or the wrong communication platform? Watch Konrad Collao’s opening speech:

In fact no-one wants to be news avoider, argued Joanna Spencer, Senior Planner at Audiences division at the BBC. News avoidance is rather a strategy of news consumption, she pointed out two years later when we returned to this topic at the Annual Conference in Barcelona. Joanna presented a recent research, done by the BBC, which showed that one of the reasons for this type of behaviour is because viewers and users feel depressed and overwhelmed by a tide of information leaving them with the responsibility to decide themselves what is news. Disinformation and fake news make the process of decision making even more difficult while audiences make their minds on “is it true, is it really new, why is it important" and “what is in it for me”. So how should media serve their audiences so that they can cope with the problem. Watch Joanna Spencer’s presentation Understanding News Avoidance: Why is it Happening and What Can We Do About It?

Looking in retrospective there’s always the question – can we perform better? Yes, said Atte Jääskeläinen, former Director of News and Current Affairs of the Finnish Broadcasting Company Yle. At the Annual Conference in Novi Sad in 2019 Atte, offered 50 ways to make it better. In his capacity of Professor of Practice at LUT University and a consultant specialising in AI in media he delivered the keynote speech “Building audience and trust in public service regional journalism”. Based on EBU’s eponymous report, the presentation explored the bottlenecks in making trustworthy relations with audiences and gave valuable advice. In brief - here are 50 ways to make it better and stay away from 50 shades of gray while reaching out to your audiences. Watch Atte Jääskeläinen keynote: