TV Viewers Are Getting Older, Or… ?
By fred | June 30, 2008
A new study from research firm Magna Global shows that network TV audience has aged out of the demographic advertisers are fond of, and plenty of reports are already commenting on how the TV audience is getting older, stating that, for the first time, the average live median age for the five broadcast networks combined is now 50.
It used to be that CBS was, by far, the oldest of all networks, with a median age above 50. But now, ABC (50) and NBC (49) are getting closer and closer to The Eye (54), and even Fox is reaching up as well, with a median age of 44, while the median age of the US population in households is still around 38.
But while everyone look at those numbers and think that TV viewers are getting older by the minute, I can’t help myself but wonder… are they ?
Because the most important numbers of all, to me eyes, are those : while the median age for CBS is indeed 54, it is down to 53 when time-shifted audience (Live+7) is taken into consideration !
Granted, only about 9% of the total audience is time-shifted, and yet it does have a significant impact. If the median age for CBS’ live audience is 54.2 it is down to 42.6 for its time-shifted audience !! That’s right, more than 11 years younger than the live audience ! And CBS isn’t an exception or anything, all networks have a time-shifted audience at least 10 years younger than their live audience.
In fact, the median age for all 5 networks combined is 49.6 live, but only 38.8 for the time-shifted audience !
What can we make out of those numbers ? That using a DVR makes you become younger. Either that, or that I believe that global television audience can be split in three main groups. Of course, the first one of those remains, without a doubt, way ahead of the other two combined : Live audience. The large majority of viewers still tune in and watch shows live as they air.
But more and more these days people are finding new ways to access their entertainment and consume media, they don’t want to let the main networks or anyone to tell them how and when they will watch their favorite shows, they want to do it when they want to, the way they want to. And as always when such new technology is introduced, it usually starts in the younger demographics.
This is when our second group comes into play, the viewers who don’t watch live, but TiVo their shows, use a DVR and watch them within a week after the show actually aired. This is the “Live+7 audience”, and for the first time this year Nielsen did count those viewers, the time-shifted audience. As we’ve seen already, those viewers are about 10 years younger that the live audience.
And now comes our third group of viewers, viewers who are probably even younger than those of the time-shitted audience, viewers that are fully in the online world, viewers watching their shows on their phones or computers, using iTunes, downloading, or online streaming. And this group, we don’t know nothing about it.
I still believe that the Nielsen’s had nothing to do with canceling Jericho but to each his/her own.
The NTN campaign to Nielsen’s is flawed and they will not listen.
Wonderful article. Full of interesting information.
Can you write another one about how to get Nielsen out of the 1950’s?
Gwen
http://www.jericho-kansas.com