Young people are largely apathetic about the Hottest 100 date

Triple J’s decision to move the date of the Hottest 100 may be the subject of a million raging debates –and a particularly hot topic in this morning’s The Australian, which has three angry opinion pieces by old men decades past the station’s demographic — but if you actually ask the kids who are meant to be listening to the station, many of them simply don’t care.

This is at least what is shown by a recent survey held by Student Edge, who quizzed 845 students about the changes to the Hottest 100 date.

43.7% of respondents didn’t believe the changes affected them or were unsure.

In other words, they don’t care, why are you even asking them this, eye roll emoji, slime, etc.

27% were opposed to changing the date, while 29.4% supported the move.

These results aren’t too removed from a survey commissioned by triple j.

A first survey in which they asked listeners to contribute garnered 64,990 responses, with 60% in favour of changing the date.

Keep in mind, these are active listeners; those who chose to be part of a survey based on an issue they were engaged with. In other words, they opted in with very little prompting, regarding a subject they know.

Due to this, only 1% of respondents said they “didn’t care” (a statement inconsistent with the act of doing a volunteer survey about one specific subject – but anyway).

A second online survey with only 759 people sheds more light on the actual apathy. These are 18-30 year olds “who had listened to triple j at some point.” This survey found 22% of people “didn’t care”. 55% wanted to move the date, while 24% were against it.

So, does this represent an age range who don’t care about the issue itself, or simply about the Hottest 100? As with all surveys, the numbers can mean exactly what you wish.

This article originally appeared on The Industry Observer, which is now part of The Music Network.