There's a constant stream of folks commenting on the site wishing that viewers outside the adult demo groups mattered to broadcast primetime networks (and advertisers). We're constantly repeating the same refrain that younger viewers are harder to reach in TV advertising, so they're more expensive to reach, so the shows reaching them have more expensive advertising and are therefore more valuable.
Not that this is going to convince anyone who doesn't really want to be convinced (which is plenty of people!), but just how much harder are young people to reach with TV advertising?
This is data on the average ratings from last week (10/12-18/2009) for broadcast prime time networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, CW). I'm not certifying that all weeks fall into these ranges, but the variation is likely not huge.
% of the US age group watching TV during primetime, and their estimated group population:
Adults 18-34: 31.9% of an estimated 68.99 million
Adults 18-49: 35.8% of an estimated 132.71 million
Adults 55+: 52.5% of an estimated 73.68 million
Adults 18-34 are hard to reach. And therefore advertising that reaches them is expensive.
Adults 55+ are easy to reach. And therefore advertising that reaches them is cheap.
The old people even forget what the commercial was for.
If older people wasted money like my generation, advertisers would pay a lot of money for them too. My mom and grandma hardly buy anything now.
But why do these advertisers keep wasting money on the TV medium when they could target them elsewhere and thus save dollars?
Obviously network TV is still a great (the best?) medium to reach them, so why do the advertisers throw so many hissy fits when they do not have a better alternative?
Aggressively targeting something that isn’t going to change or increase is pointless.
So advertisers just sit down and shut up as network tv is still probably your best bet, and if the audience declines are too much of a worry and no 18-49 wants to watch NBC crap, then you still have to take it.
Cruel_Heartless, I don’t think advertisers are the ones complaining about erosion in ratings. If they are complaining at all, it is because cable provides nearly as good a medium for reach the target demos as broadcast, but there is still a premium for broadcast.
Yeah I know they probably aren’t complaining directly, but they are undoubtedly putting pressure on the networks to lower advertising fees which gets the Network execs backs up which presumably puts pressure on the advertisers and thier strict agenda (which is a logical money making one).
The way advertising works is cost per point. Even if no one ever hinted that CPP for broadcast was too high, the fact that ratings are dropping every year means that advertising dollars drop as well. The execs don’t need anyone else putting pressure on them. The ratings are enough on their own.
Perhaps for the 55+ demo (that’s me) we should stop watching! Let’s start a movement to dump broadcast television. Then we can get some attention from advertisers, networks, and sites like this. We need to get that percentage down to 30%.
AZTop, it’s not just broadcast. My guess is that aggregate cable numbers would be similar (although we don’t have those).
Sigh, I know that. I suppose what I’m trying to say is that maybe the advertisers are being too inflexible and narrow minded when it comes to solely spending the most time and the most money on a campaign with 18-39 that really cannot be bothered watching Network tv to an advertisers schedule and that they should adapt or focus elsewhere to catch the 18-34 eyeballs. I mean still spending both time and money on a medium that is eroding so sharply and consistently isn’t really a good business decision. Sure, for the moment and short term it works as well as can be expected, and it probably is the best out there to catch 18-34, but long term its going to be ulimately fruitless. I guess I was trying to see the big picture for the corporations/companies that want to last beyond the next five years.
Yeah I know Bill, but I have to be able to watch something!
Right now I’m just thinking us old folks take on broadcast, then if we bring them to their knees we hit cable too.
I already checked and the domain http://www.dumpbroadcasttv.com is available. I’m all set to go.
AZTop, should I tell the local bingo parlor to expect your friends and you to attend more often instead of watching TV? Seriously, you’d have to get millions of seniors to stop watching television for a long time if you hope to affect any change. You even said you don’t want to stop watching TV; you just want different shows to cater to you more.
Since it’s all about money, the best thing you can do is buy products from the advertisers on your favorite shows. Then let them know you saw your commercials on shows X, Y and Z. Boycotts are ineffective. People outside the demos say they have money to spend. Advertisers say they don’t spend it. So prove them wrong.
Interesting read. What about the demo under 18 what is the percentage of them watching Broadacast TV?
By the way, Bill/Robert this article should be in the featured story of the blog because I guess the readers are not noticing you had this post up. This post deserves more exposure IMO than the renew/cancel index stories since readers will flock those posts anyway
I for one did not notice this since post it was already buried by the several press releases in the ‘Newest Posts” sidebar, I only found this when I checked previous tweets.
forg, you and I may be interested in this, but most of our readers aren’t
The Teens 12-17 demo average broadcast primetime rating last week was a 26.9.
^ Thanks Bill
Suggestion, how about putting a different side bar for the press releases and the TBTN posts? Or at least prioritize the TBTN posts over the press releases so that this kind of informative won’t get buried easily
Forg, we used to prioritize our posts above press releases using the time stamp, but we’ve gotten lazy. I will re-prioritize this one for fun and see if it gets more views.
Sadly, there is no easy technical implementation to separate out the press releases.
It’s not really laziness, and if we reshuffle the order by backdating press releases and changing times on posts, it screws up our RSS readers because it changes the order of the posts. I think doing it for one or two posts here and there (like this one) isn’t a problem, but if we strive to always prioritize the non press release content, it exponentially increases the chances that our RSS readers (especially the skimmers!) will miss something they wanted to see.
I’d rather double the length of the “recent posts” list and make better use of the center column and featured posts than get into a regular practice of reordering posts.
Thanks for taking a chance on this post haha
Would it be possible to exclude press releases from the recent posts, the way cable news comments are from recent comments? I’m not sure you’d want to do that, but if prioritizing non-press releases is more important, it could work. (If it’s possible, that is.)
Julia, it’s possible, yes, but then the press releases don’t get fed to Google. That’s not an issue for the comments.
Ergo…The CW’s target of W18-34 and P18-34 is an excellent strategy. That market IS tougher to reach, but advertisers know exactly who is catering to that segment with programming. No, CW doesn’t have the gaudy overall numbers of a CBS, but why do you think CBS was keen on partnering with WB for this venture? To reach the young viewers it KNEW it would never reach with its aging crime dramas and 60 Minutes.
Face it, the next time an 18-34 year old tunes in regularly to CBS will be the FIRST time.