There must be a schedule within the CBS PR department for pimping the media for stories about how the adults 18-49 demo is outmoded and how new measures (like the radically different adults 25-54 demo?) are more appropriate because they seem to appear on a semi-monthly basis during the broadcast season.
This time CBS PR hits up Business Week for the spin, and even finds two actual people involved in media buying to provide quotes!
Advertisers still pay a premium to reach the 18-to-49 set, say media buyers like Donchin, “but we’re no longer as fixated on that. We look at who gets the eyeballs and who makes the buying decisions in a household.” It helps, too, that viewers aged 25 to 54—CBS’s strongest demographic—watch 90 minutes more of TV a night than 18- to 49-year-olds, says Brad Adgate, a research executive at the ad buying agency Horizon Media.
Fox can still charge advertisers a hefty premium for shows like Family Guy that have built huge followings among young viewers. But CBS’s large audiences have helped it to an additional 10% or more for 30-second ads compared to earlier this year. As a result, estimates industry analyst SNL Kagan, CBS will generate $4.7 billion in advertising revenues this year, allowing it to sneak past NBC.
For years, CBS CEO Leslie Moonves has called advertisers’ fixation on young viewers simplistic. Now, with 18- to 49-year-old Americans among the hardest-hit casualties of the Great Recession, his theory makes more sense. As Moonves told BusinessWeek in an interview: “Someone needs to show me where an 18-year-old consumer buys more than a 50-year-old.” The question for CBS is whether big audiences of graying Americans will jazz advertisers once the economy recovers.
Les Moonves, always on message, which in this case is if you can’t win by the rules in place, try and change the rules!
And after they get a “shift” to the 25-54 demo, they’ll move to the 30-60 demo, then onward and upward to the 100+ age bracket. Because, you know, since the elderly vote such much, their TV viewing habits should be important too….
…and anyone who thinks I’m being anything other than sarcastic should be shot for the Crime of Extreme Stupidity.
Honestly I see why advertisers love the 18-49 demo. Older folks are set in their ways and less likely to buy most products that are advertised, especially cars.
However, it obviously does depend on the advertiser what they’re willing to pay. Those electric scooter things old people ride around on probably pay big bucks for an NCIS spot, I would think.
Doesn’t this already answer why advertisers like to reach to the 18-49 demo?
As Moonves told BusinessWeek in an interview: “Someone needs to show me where an 18-year-old consumer buys more than a 50-year-old.”
lol
Personally, I’d be interested in going after that 42-62 bracket. It’s filled with MILFs, and we all know they are the ones with the real buying power.
I would not be surprised to see CBS succeed here. This is total opinion, but with more choice and a greater ability to research where our dollars go these days, it stands to reason that it has to be easier to break through brand loyalty than it was in the old days. If that does prove to be true, then focusing on younger, poorer viewers would become passe eventually.
In any case, if I were an advertiser, and NBC was skewing 4.0 in the demo with only 8 million total viewers, and CBS was skeing 3.0 in the demo with 18 million total viewers, I’d buy ad time on the CBS show, especially if it were cheaper.
There has to be a crossover point where massive total viewer ratings trump small demo advantages. I’m not sure where that point is, but I’d be interested to find out.
I always thought this mindset was somewhat antiquated. People are waiting longer to have kids, get married, etc. The 49 age seems arbitrary to me.
People are living and working longer, something to consider for ratings.
I agree with Moonves that focusing on the A1849 demo is simplistic, especially since a 2.0 is now the benchmark for success and a 4.0 makes you #1. The so-called “graying” demos are not as staid as they once were. More and more of them are taking to the internet and become more flexible with their purchasing.
The “graying” demo to whom you refer as being set in their ways are the already “grayed” demo who still watch the evening news and have neither a cell phone nor a computer. These are not the people to whom Moonves is referring to.
Given the fact that the median age in America is outside this coveted A1849 demo should be a hint that Moonves may be on to something. Besides, the younger and of that coveted demo isn’t watching TV the same as the rest of us anyway. It would behoove advertisers to find a new way to reach them.
A2554 is the new A1849.
Moonvees is clearly self-serving with his POV, but he’s fundamentally correct. Most people over 50 have far more disposable income than those under 50. It seems folly to constantly target those with less spending money.
I’ll be 50 next year. I doubt that all of a sudden I will stop buying stuff. So I agree they need to change things up a bit.
I bet those advertisers who take the older viewers for granted would see their buying power if the ancient 50 year olds stopped taking their kids and their grandkids to the fast food restaurants, just stopped buying anything advertised on TV for a week. To begin with who decided anyone over 50 is old. It used to be old, 50 years ago. People keep saying this demo is set in their ways and that is just rubbish.
Some are but so are some 20 and 30 year olds, the idiots making decisions about TV advertising certainly are. I thought advertising was all about making those who don’t want your product want to buy your product. These advertisers are just lazy.
And if the older group already buys your product do you want them to switch? I thought brand loyalty was a plus for a company.
It all comes down to advertisers not wanting to pay for what they already have.
CBS has and always will be at least in the forseeable future an old fart network. When I say that, I don’t mean that in a negative way. CBS has always attracted older demos. I guess that what happens when you always or least most of the time look for quality shows thus earning the Tiffany Network nickname.
They tried to be young in the mid 1990’s. Did not quite work out for them.
They should be greatful for the shows that attract the young and old demos alike. NCIS has brought in the young demos in its seventh season than previous seasons.
Again, people get hung up on ageism that doesn’t exist, and bogged down on issues of philosophy and buying power, when that’s not what’s behind this.
At this point I’m convinced that anyone over 50 who doesn’t want to believe market economics simply is going to ignore it regardless of what we write. But the advertisers do NOT take the older viewers and their spending power for granted. It’s just that the over 50 viewers are so abundantly available in the TV viewing world, advertisers don’t need to pay extra to reach them. The advertisers reach them pretty much no matter what they do.
i have always thought it is insane to forget the over 50 crowd…younger dosen’t mean more buying power at all and its bad business to think that it does.
It isn’t even just 18-49 that the advertiers want. Who they REALLY want are the 18-35 year olds in the so-called “golden demographic”.
Apparently, older people such as myself just stop buying things once we reach a certain age.
And, for the record, I know plenty of “old/elderly” folks out there who use computers, cellphones, and in many cases are early adopters (people who buy first generation shiny new stuff). My 80 year old mother, for example, has not one, but TWO cellphones and got her first computer when she hit her mid-60’s.
Advertisers are making a serious pile of faulty judgments.
Media buying will take a LONG time to change. I recently worked for a FOX affiliate who (at the time) did not have a news program. Our programs routinely slayed the competitions’ news. Regardless, 35% of local media buying (that includes national advertisers spending locally) is news, so that was 35% of the market’s money we would never see.
It’s all in the tone of how it’s put. Look at the top of this article. Showing a picture of father time to represent old people pretty much sums up the lack of respect that people have for anyone older than 49. Skewing older is synonymous with the plague as far as anyone under 40 is concerned.
“It helps, too, that viewers aged 25 to 54—CBS’s strongest demographic—watch 90 minutes more of TV a night than 18- to 49-year-olds, says Brad Adgate, a research executive at the ad buying agency Horizon Media.”
The key phrase is “90 minutes more of TV a night.” That’s why advertisers can afford to pay less. Older people generally watch more television than younger people. I wouldn’t have thought the difference between 18 and 25 & 49 and 54 would be so vast in terms of viewing habits but Mr. Adgate gets paid to know this stuff.
Robert, your point about over 50 viewers may well have applied 10-15 years ago, but with the totally fragmented nature of broadcasting these days, combined with loss of eyeballs to the Internet and other endeavors, I’d say any show that can generate a sizeable audience of any age has some economic value. I realize advertisers may not yet be on that bandwagon, but I think anyone who believes that a show that generates a 3.5 18-49 with total viewers of 8 million creates more value for advertisers than a show that generates a 2.7 18-49 with 16 Million total viewers is nuts. Of course, I’m not an expert, but then again, if you never deviate from the path you’ll never know about the path untaken.
The thing that network types fail to remember is we do remember how to use an off and on switch on our TV’s and then you can’t reach us at all. It’s time to STOP ignoring a large sector of the viewing audience that has more disposal income than the youngsters you lust after.
If older people aren’t being served by TV, then why do watch so much more?
I don’t understand why people demand to have advertisers target them.
I don’t think people are demanding advertisers target them, but they do want to have TV shows that target them.
This quote in Business Week explains why 18-49 is still the key demo:
“It helps, too, that viewers aged 25 to 54—CBS’s strongest demographic—watch 90 minutes more of TV a night than 18- to 49-year-olds”
18-49 is a harder demo group to reach, making them more valuable to advertisers. So while CBS get’s more total viewers, the majority of those viewers are easy to reach by advertisers and there is no need to pay a premium to reach them.
Sounds like Nielsen, the advertisers, and the cable and over-the-air broadcasters need to fund and execute a new study on the actual responses to advertising by television viewers, to see what demographic groups make sense in this fragmented market, where the time required to invoke the “Gunsmoke rule” is fast approaching one year, and could drop to six months within five to ten years!
Everyone would benefit – the advertisers, by better targeting their ads, and better spending for those ads; the broadcasters, by knowing exactly where they need to get their audiences to maximize their revenues from ad sales; and Nielsen, by getting the advertisers and the broadcasters to stop fighting, and sending their checks in to Nielsen with much less grumbling
Would we, the audience, benefit? No idea – but I wouldn’t bet more than a fiver on that proposition.
Would TVBTN benefit? If they could monetize every post, they would be instant millionaires within two months
Mark, again, if older people don’t like the shows, then why do they watch so much more?
JR, they feel unloved!
This is one of those amazing conundrums about this society.
It is more plausible for competitive advertising agencies to sell to a model that, right or wrong, is the finite world in which they’ve come to live than to actually quantify real world results.
If on Madison Avenue, it had already been determined the world was flat, then no matter how much proof was offered to the contrary, it’s not about reality to them. It’s about the flat world concept they’ve all bought into.
It’s easier that way than to create a new paradigm, even if that paradigm aligned with reality.
Remember, these people are working in the world of fantasy all the time. Why not fabricate a model that can be safely sold to a willing clientele?
Mark, that’s the point. Folks over 50 watch most broadcast primetime shows in large numbers.
BTW, oh yeah, I’m mad as hell and… you know the rest.
God knows I feel unloved flipping through the channels most nights, Bill – and I am safely in the demo!
We’ll know when CBS has gone too far – when they introduce CSI: Fargo…
…wait a minute – that might get a very good demo audience – particularly if Frances McDormand starred, along with Wood Chipper
I agree with CBS, last season I wrote a reply with this content!
we could say that next decade de demo target will be 25-54! working people.
I think what’s clear from all of this is that what advertisers SHOULD care about is whatever demographic happens to be watching Dollhouse on FOX!
It’s been a while since I’ve seen FOX describe the awesome demographics of people who watch Dollhouse (and I wonder why it’s been so long!) but I do seem to recall that it was Young Men! So clearly Young Men matter! Sorry old people! Go enjoy your Metamucil, and your Buick, and your Polident, and leave the stuff that matters to young people!
Dollhouse! Dollhouse! Dollhouse! Dollhouse rules! CBS drools! Dollhouse!
JBF, I understand that Fox has asked Nielsen to measure the “Relatives of Joss Whedon” demo for Dollhouse, hoping for a solid 100 rating!
The slightly older generation (25-54) controls most of the wealth in this country, and while they might be “set in their ways” (I take issue with that), they also do not show the resistance that younger people have towards advertising.
I understand weighting ad dollars towards younger viewers, for a number of reasons, but for one demographic to dominate 100% of ad dollars is stupid.
The salient demos are really to be found at the product side of the equation. If you’re product is E.D. and Metamucil, your demo should be matched to the demo of the audience watching a show (i.e. perverts and… sorry
.
Tampax doesn’t fit Fox NFL Sunday, nor an aggressive beer deliverer pulling beer off the shelves (what’s the deal with the demos that ad appeals to?) for Days of Our Lives (is that still on?).
Lazy ad execs. should bother to match demos better and use actual product stats better. People over 49 do purchase something, I think.
Stat accumulation is tons better than 20 years ago, yet we still have the lazy demo categories. Advertisers should demand a breakout from the mold.
Howard, others, make no mistake, advertisers use far more detailed gender/age/other demographic data than simply “adults 18-49″ to target and price their advertising. We use it because for our purposes (guessing the future of shows based on overall revenue) the “adults 18-49″ simplification works.
However, the fact that older viewers (50+) are so prevalent for most broadcast shows makes them practically (or actually?) free when buying advertising, so shows that attract them gain little or nothing in revenue value.
Hey,JBF, I didn’t see you comment on the ratings for this week’s Dollhouse. Why not?
Hey – no JBF baiting!
Nina Tassler wanted CBS to have some “dope” shows this year. Which is kind of amusing in the light of the fact that 3 of CBS’ new shows are the 3 oldest-skewing new prime-time shows on broadcast television. I can’t speak for others but a median age of 56-57 is decidedly undope in my book.
Again, people get hung up on ageism that doesn’t exist, and bogged down on issues of philosophy and buying power, when that’s not what’s behind this.
Attention span? Us ‘older’ folks NOT in the MTV generation learned how to pay attention in longer than 15 second jump cut intervals?
Even though CBS doesn’t “win” 18-49 very often over all, by my count (courtesy of you guys) it still has the most shows in the demo’s top 25. Last week, CBS has 10 among the top 18-49 shows, Fox had six, ABC five and NBC four. Does that number of shows not count in CBS’s favor, even if it doesn’t have a higher 18-49 number for the week?
BrianM, CBS *did* lead the 18-49 primetime averages the week ending Oct 18, and does so reasonably often in the fall. Because of Fox’s monster Sunday, that’ll be Fox’s title the week of Oct 25 for sure though.
As for # of shows in the 18-49 top 25 vs. overall 18-49 average, while having more shows doing well certainly has some benefits, that’s mostly in the “matters more for boasting” category rather than the “meaningful to revenue” category.
Thanks for the explanation, Bill. I love this site. I’ve been a Nielsen junkie since I was about 14 (in 1970) and wanted to know if my favorite show at the time, Mary Tyler Moore, was doing well, and I come back for my fix many times during the day. So, thanks!
It is a waste of money paying a premium for eyeballs in a “hard to reach” demographic. It’s backwards. As an advertiser, I would pay less for it or not at all.
It stands to chance that the “hard to reach demographic” is hard to reach because they are not watching TV on TV. Find out where those “hard to reach” demographics are and meet them there instead of paying a premium to reach them where they clearly aren’t.
It’s inefficient.
Just because an A2554 or A35-64 or A35+ demo is “easier to reach” doesn’t mean that can’t benefit from messaging of a new product or service within their brand. The lower demographics generally follow suit (speaking from the lower demographic).
Perhaps a better way to reach the “harder to reach” demographic is through the “easier to reach” demographic.
What better bang for your buck is that?
Terrence, I understand what you are trying to say, but you have it backwards. Advertisers target the harder to reach 18-49 demo knowing that they will also reach the much easier to reach older demos at the same time.
Tommy — I still have to disagree. If you can hit a “premium” demo with “non-premium” dollars, why would do the opposite?
I’m 27 Male and i think the whole commercial stuff has more to do with branding. Older people tend to be smarter and research more and not buy something because of name brand. I see these commericals aimed at me and it’s all about cool slogans, catching songs, attractive women.
I recently looked into buying lcd tv and found out VIZIO is the most popular brand lcd sold recently, and it’s a generic brand name.
The whole preminum stuff makes sense.
Apples/Oranges are cheap to buy at grocery store, because there more widely available.
But Mangoes/Blueberries or exotic fruit are more expensive because of scarcity.
I was a member of the IMMI sampling audience last year. For about a year, I carried an additional cell phone in the apparently since-jettisoned venture with Nielsen. The idea was to record bits of sound around me and match what I was watching–especially outside of the home–and transmit it back through the internet connection in order to measure my TV viewing (estimated representing 125,000 people in the national sampling I was part of.)
More interestingly, however, it was going to (may have started to) match all the TV I was exposed to with the stores I visited. So, if I watched a show with a Macy’s commercial, for instance, then visited a Macy’s the next day, it would make note of the possible direct effect of an advertisement.
The software in the phone and bluetooth were used and the potential to get the likes of stores to sign up to better track results was an interesting idea.
This is closer to where the future of measurements are going, rather than the old Demo model. The internet already does a much better tracking job of viewers. Too bad IMMI ended its experiment after a year. I hadn’t gotten enough radiation exposure from my two phones yet.
Alright, I want everyone frustrated with Demo measures to get out of your easy chair, go to your nearest window and say: “Madison Avenue, we’re *#$@%!… and we’re not going to take it any more!”
I am in my early 50s and I see advertising for what it is . If the product appeals to me I will try it. Cars, banks,services. I do believe I have more disposable income than my 26 and 30 year old sons. Some of those dollars are really lost on younger folks.
“But the advertisers do NOT take the older viewers and their spending power for granted. It’s just that the over 50 viewers are so abundantly available in the TV viewing world, advertisers don’t need to pay extra to reach them. The advertisers reach them pretty much no matter what they do.”
Forgive my ignorance, but does that mean that total number of viewers does have somewhat of an impact on whether or not a show gets renewed? Even if it is easier to reach the older demographic, wouldn’t a show getting 11 million viewers (such as Castle) still be worth something to the advertisers?
It’s like you’re buying an aquarium with fish in it. There’s one aquarium that has a whole ton of goldfish in it. There’s another aquarium that has about half as many goldfish, but there’s also a bunch of rare tropical fish in it, but in total there are less fish in it. So which aquarium is more valuable?
The one with the rare tropical fish, of course. It has less fish in number but that tropical fish is a lot harder harder to find, and you’re in luck that there are any of those tropical fish left. And you’ve got some movies coming out that the tropical fish are going to like a lot more than the goldfish.
If older folks are complaining there aren’t any shows aimed at them…there’s a whole channel of them! CBS!
As a 52 yr. old viewer of FOX, ABC, & CBS I have to say that I’m a little insulted by some of the things I have read. First who are some of these authors meeting in my age group? We are the generation who brought you the Internet and computers. I believe we have use of all the technology out there. Granted we had to learn as we go since unlike our younger counterparts we did not have the ability to learn in school. So in reality it makes us smarter and want it more. in my home we have 5 DVRs, 6 TVs, 3 3G touch cell phones and on waiting list for new Verizon Android phone, 4 MP3 players,1 blu ray player, 4 DVD players, 1 DVD recorder, 3 laptops and 1 desktop computer and all the accessories.
I believe the mistake being made is who is what age group, somehow people are confusing my parents aged 73 & 85 who are alive, vibrant, buying new cars and also using technology like the rest of us, albeit not as much. ?That seems to be the person being described in the 54 yr. old age group. no myself, my husband or our friends.
While the explanations by Tommy, Terrance and others make the most sense, I believe the ad buyers are making a mistake. I watch almost all my TV thru my DVR’s hate commercials. Watch “Dollhouse”, “Fringe”,”Fast Forward”,”Family Guy”,and “Lie to Me’ as well as “Sons of Anarchy” (one of my favorites} and “Burn Notice”. So JBF, you idiot, I am not your great-grandmother. We have the money time and ability to buy products and we do change our minds. I think the powers that be forget that we are the first real “TV generation” so we grew up with commercials and probably would react to them more that the 18 to 49 as they watch “TV” totally different than my generation, they do not have the money for the cars being sold or the electronics unless Mommy & Daddy are buying them.
All we want is quality, that is why we leave broadcast and go to cable stations including HBO, SHOW, and STARZ.
Things need to change, I am tired of seeing quality shows get axed because an illiterate 19 yr. old boy who doesn’t have a dime to his name won’t watch because there isn’t enough T & A. What we need to do is show the force of the Largest Generation around. we let the Seniors on one end and the Kids on the other determine what happens to us. It is slightly perverse that as the largest subculture we don’t have more pull. If we would just get it together, we could be the demo that all media programs to, just a thought