Exposure to MTV's Global HIV Prevention Campaign in Kathmandu, Nepal; Sao Paulo, Brazil; and Dakar, Senegal

In 2002 MTV aired a global media campaign, "Staying Alive," to promote HIV prevention among 16- to 25-year-olds. Skeptics believed that a global MTV campaign would reach only a small group of elite young people. MTV increased access to its campaign, however, by making all materials "rights free" to third-party (non-MTV) broadcasters. Over 789 million households in over 166 countries had access to some or all of the campaign. To understand the level of actual exposure and the types of young people exposed, data were analyzed from population-based household surveys in three diverse urban areas where a campaign evaluation was conducted: Kathmandu, Nepal; Sao Paulo, Brazil and Dakar, Senegal. Exposure rates ranged from 12% in Kathmandu, 23% in Sao Paulo, and 82% in Dakar, reaching an estimated 32,000, 400,000, 220,000 16- to 25-year-olds in each city, respectively. A number of personal, social and economic characteristics found to predict campaign exposure were identified in each site; in general, these were related to economic status and use of "new" media technologies. Though this skew toward more exposure by those with greater resources existed, we found that the campaign audience was in no way composed only of "elite" young people. (For example, although more of those exposed to the campaign had used the Internet compared with those not exposed, this was not the majority of those exposed in most countries.) The possibility of reaching millions of young people through global networks with minimal marginal costs after production, creates a new paradigm for reaching an important segment of young people.