Sure, fans care about total viewers, and they are good numbers to throw around in press releases and in general because it's an easy number everyone understands. If you start getting into discussion of the 18-49 demographic with the masses of fans it begs a lot of questions, starting with "huh?" and usually ending with some comment like "That's crazy, people over 50 have more money to spend than some punk 22 year old kid!"
Nonetheless, we focus on adults 18-49 because for primetime, it and adults 18-34 are the best generic measures of a show's success. The ad rates are set based on the amount of younger viewers and success in selling advertising is typically the biggest factor in whether a show gets renewed or canceled.
As an example, earlier this week Bill Carter had an article in the New York Times about how although Dancing with the Stars has actually had a couple of wins over American Idol, it basically just amounts to chest thumping in press releases. American Idol charges $642,000 for a 30 second commercial spot while Dancing with the Stars is selling 30 seconds of ad time at $209,000 per spot.
Mr. Carter explains the huge difference in the advertising rates:
Why the huge disparity? Because the two shows, while now close in overall viewers, have vastly different audience profiles. These can be summed up in simple terms: “Dancing” is heavily female and older; “Idol” is heavily female and younger.
“Dancing” is a show with a serious tilt toward women viewers over 50 years old. Last week, for example, of those 23 million total viewers, 10 million, or about 43 percent, were women over 50. (Another 3.9 million were men over 50.)
The experts have spoken again. Problem is, most of your readers know and get all this. You'll always be writing these for newbs who come in and 'know better'.
Many of our readers certainly, but most might be a stretch. There is a seemingly large contingent who rail against the truth of it even after it has been explained.
preaching to the choir here, but hopefully some delusional fan of a CBS procedural will see this and hopefully learn something.
I know and get all this, but I still always like reading these articles for some reason.
Although I know that in the business sense, AI is the hands down winner, I kinda want DWTS Mondays 10 to beat AI9 Tuesdays in total viewers this season just to shake things up since AI has been winning for the past 5 years
Perhaps the numbers matter because it dictates what type of ads run on shows? The over-50 crowd is interested in a different retail segment than the younger crowd.
That's why I find it funny that the ads for bladder control devices usually say “See our ad in Golf Digest.” Their target audience?
Maybe there's usually some 'argument' because it seems counter intuitive? It's like a president winning the popular vote but loosing the electoral vote and therefore loosing the election. A lot of people probably think that if a show has a lot of viewers, regardless of age, that means it's popular (which I guess technically it could just not with the 'right' people). It's always good to have 'reality check' articles to remind people that this is the way TV works.
I'll still be interested to see as the country gets 'older' if the 18-49 (34) demo becomes even more sought after.
(Quick point. using American Idol as the case study point is simply an example of a biased comparison and not valid. That show has simply resonated with both demo and total viewers. Ideally, networks would like every show to be like that, but it just doesn't work that way).
Now,
Sigh, I realize fully that I'm about to step on sacred hallowed ground here, but I do have a couple of comments.
First, Let me say up front that I understand all the theory in the world about how it is viewed to be more important to get the demo audience (e.g. 18-49). Those are the consumers who will watch a car ad on TV with suggests that every guy with a hot car will have to have a baseball bat on hand to keep the women away from him. Yep, if he buys this car this will happen for him too.
That's why the demo is so important. At younger ages you think this, by the time you are 50 (or more likely 40) you no longer believe this to anything close to the same extent. You are not easily molded simply by a slick ad. Your basic preferences and choices are – within much narrower limits – set and a slick ad filled with subtle inferences is much less likely to reach you.
Simply put, younger people will be much more susceptable to the hidden messages and not be able to apply shortcomings and logical fallicies in the message to themselves.
So from that perspective it is not hard at all to understand advertisers targeting this audience and downplaying the lament from older viewers saying “How can they think people over 50 don't have money”?
Answer: Nets and advertisers do know it but realize ( over 50) are harder to reach and definitely more difficult to sell.
I can certainly understand the rational from advertisers in targeting and even the reality. . .to a certain point.
To me, though, the statement often shouted in this blog that ” the demo is the only thing that counts” is nonsense in some instances. With similar total viewing audiences, then yes, the demo is more important, but there has to be an equalibrium point where the disparity in total viewers overwhelms the demo no matter how much more it (the demo) is sought.
Let's look at a couple of recent examples. Take Tuesday night.
Parenthood 2.6 / approx 6.5 Million viewers
V 2.5 6.3 million
Good Wife 2.4 12 million
Who won the night. Well, the demo says Parenthood, but I would say Good Wife. You just have to think that a net or advertiser would take their changes that they could make up that extra 200K younger viewers from the additional 5.5 million 50+ . But that's not what many on this site like to say. They like to parrot “The demo is the ONLY THING THAT COUNTS”
Another perhaps more realistic example. A little while ago from a Thursday night.
Office 3.8 demo approx 7.0 million total
CSI 2.7 demo approx 13.5 million.
Who won this battle? Demo says The Office. They got about 1.2 million or so more demo viewers. The question is, though, can the additional 6.5 million make up the 1.2 demo advantage?
My answer, yes, it can. If I was a network sales exec and someone came to me with this latter comparison and said that it was more important to retain the Office because it skewed younger, I would tell them to go find products and advertisers that are interested in the total viewer number. If they said they couldn't or wouldn't because “The demo is the only thing that counts”, I would tell them I would find salesmen who could.
While I understand that 18-49 is the holy grail, some advertisers do pay for other demographics. Heck, you can head over to Time Warner ad sales and they have all sorts of demos listed for Kids that you can target with your advertising dollars (i.e. 12-17, 2-11, 6-11 and 9-14) for different shows.
If no one is paying to reach kids, how does Nickelodeon pay the bills? I know that when Burger King is trying to ramp up business by showing a commercial with some sort of action figures in a happy meal, it is targeting the 10 year old boy who is going to make his mom bring him to BK.
They also give you the ability to target Men and Women 50+ (unless that scooter store commercial is really aimed at me…)
So while I buy that 99% of advertising dollars go to 18-49, I do not believe that areas outside that demo are just crossed off the chart and ignored.
In your other post, you said that if two shows had identical 18-49 numbers, but one show had millions more viewers, it wouldn't make a difference. I respectfully disagree.
Was talking about primetime broadcast network rates here. Really the only outlier is the CW (women 18-34), but it's smaller than some cable networks at this point. I don't believe I ever said that in an event where a network was fretting over two shows with identical ratings that total viewers might not play a part in the decision. Indeed, if I had two shows with a 2.0 A18-49 rating and one had 7 million viewers and one had 10 million, assuming every other demo was a tie, total viewers might come into play. But if the 7 million viewer show had better 18-34 ratings, then the extra 3 million wouldn't swing the decision.
Eh? Yeah CBS skews ridiculously old but they have the most stable and predictable schedule going into upfronts.
What? I'll agree with stable, but predictable? CBS is the network with the most bubble shows. ABC is by far the most predictable, with only V which could truly go either way.
By predictable I meant ratings-wise. You could make much better ballpark guesses at the ratings CBS shows will get next year than for any other net.
Besides the demographics do you know how much income comes into play? I mean even if you have a demo of 3.5 in 18-49 year olds does income play a role. If most of those 18-49 year olds are at the poverty line or below I don't where many advertisers would think them desirable especially compared to let's say a demo rating of 3.0 in 18-49 year olds who have an upper middle class income.
I'm guessing that income plays some factor in what ad rates a network can charge for a show.
Well the DEMO IS THE ONLY THING THAT COUNTS. What counts is what advertisers are willing to pay – how much money the network gets for airing a show. Forget DVD sales and international rights. That only goes to the production studio and not the broadcast network. Something the broadcast network owns the production studio but not necessarily.
Whether you like it or not, advertisers will pay more money to air their ads on shows that have better demographic ratings. They don't care about total viewers. They don't want to target a broad spectrum of society but a narrow one that is most likely to buy their product. And they believe rightly or wrongly it doesn't matter because they believe it that people over 49 aren't of value to them to advertise to and they won't pay for advertising to them.
I'm guessing that viewers income also comes into play somewhere in that ad rate since have a fantastic demo number of low income people isn't of much value to advertisers and I can't see them wanting to pay money to reach those viewers.
Makes sense. SO I guess for The CW, you can then say that FLY GIRLS is a moderate hit then. Because for them, the numbers keep growing especially in the female demo 18-34 and the series is getting comparable numbers to say, 90210 which is way more expensive and got another season.
I predict that The CW will order a second season of FLY GIRLS and they should. Last nights episode finally felt like a real series. It is coming into it’s own and may just be a show the CW needs – people are talking about it.
Makes sense. SO I guess for The CW, you can then say that FLY GIRLS is a moderate hit then. Because for them, the numbers keep growing especially in the female demo 18-34 and the series is getting comparable numbers to say, 90210 which is way more expensive and got another season.
I predict that The CW will order a second season of FLY GIRLS and they should. Last nights episode finally felt like a real series. It is coming into it’s own and may just be a show the CW needs – people are talking about it.
Makes sense. SO I guess for The CW, you can then say that FLY GIRLS is a moderate hit then. Because for them, the numbers keep growing especially in the female demo 18-34 and the series is getting comparable numbers to say, 90210 which is way more expensive and got another season.
I predict that The CW will order a second season of FLY GIRLS and they should. Last nights episode finally felt like a real series. It is coming into it’s own and may just be a show the CW needs – people are talking about it.
Makes sense. SO I guess for The CW, you can then say that FLY GIRLS is a moderate hit then. Because for them, the numbers keep growing especially in the female demo 18-34 and the series is getting comparable numbers to say, 90210 which is way more expensive and got another season.
I predict that The CW will order a second season of FLY GIRLS and they should. Last nights episode finally felt like a real series. It is coming into it’s own and may just be a show the CW needs – people are talking about it.
Makes sense. SO I guess for The CW, you can then say that FLY GIRLS is a moderate hit then. Because for them, the numbers keep growing especially in the female demo 18-34 and the series is getting comparable numbers to say, 90210 which is way more expensive and got another season.
I predict that The CW will order a second season of FLY GIRLS and they should. Last nights episode finally felt like a real series. It is coming into it’s own and may just be a show the CW needs – people are talking about it.