59-05-032 Proceeding

119 Proceedings of the Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Congress reported that in the fourth quarter of 2009 people aged 50-64 watched on average 42 hours and 38 minutes of TV a week and people aged 65 and older watched on average 47 hours and 21minutes of TV a week. [3]. A survey in Germany found that German people aged 50 years and older watched on average 233 minutes of TV a day, and older people watched more. German people aged 65 and older watched 253 minutes of TV a day. [4] As for Thailand, a 20-year survey (1989-2008) by the National Statistics Office (2008) found that as the nation developed economically, more elderly people tended to be exposed to TVmedia; i.e. the percentage of people aged 60 and over who said they watched TV rose from 62.9% in 1989 to 73.4% in 1994, 81.3% in 2003 and 84.6% in 2008 [5]. Surveys in North America, Europe and Asia confirmed that TV is a medium that most elderly people watch in their daily lives. Psychologists and behaviorists have explained that as people age they tend to socialize less due to financial and physical constraints. They tend to spend more time at home, and thus have more time to watch TV. When aged people fall ill or suffer grief from the loss of a partner, then TV can be an aid to dispel loneliness [6]. Old people feel that TV keeps them in touch with the outside world and informs them about events and occurrences. They can get news and entertainment and do not feel as deserted or alone [7]. TV media is important or almost essential for the elderly as shown above. This led to one of the research questions: how can we make existing programming meet the needs of the elderly? This is the origin of the research objective, to study the situation of TV programs for the elderly on free TV channels. II. Methodology This was a qualitative research based on in-depth interviews with 30 key informants, consisting of TV administrators, professional experts, academic experts, experts on the elderly, and TV program advertising sponsors (6 from each group). The data collection tool was an in-depth interview form. Data were collected using in-depth interviews and analyzed using descriptively analysis. Figure 1 Approaches to developing TV programs for the elderly