Age in Advertising

Two articles this week focus on a minor point that repeatedly came up in class yesterday: age. Most of the media we have been studying use a business model based on advertising, and one of the most important demographic bits of information for advertisers is an audience’s age.

In her article, Amy Chozick of The Wall Street Journal talks about the baby boomer generation’s recent inclusion in network TV. Chozick notes that although the TV industry has traditionally focused on creating programming that appeals to 18- to 49-year-olds, “networks want to charge advertisers more to reach” the “80 million baby boomers” (47- to 65-year-olds) who “still watch a disproportionate amount of TV, and […] control half of all U.S. consumer spending.”

As a point of comparison, an article this week in Los Angeles Times by Meg James points out that Comedy Central has found a huge young male audience with its Tosh.0. The perception is that the show’s web savvy has made it hugely popular with a difficult to grasp audience. She also points out that “Despite its success, Comedy Central has been unable to charge the same premium ad rates as NBC does because, despite the show's popularity, it lacks prestige and is frequently full of bathroom humor. But that’s what fans like.”

These articles show that some networks have trouble getting premium rates for an older audience, and some networks are having trouble getting the most from their younger audience. It is interesting to watch the rhetorical back and forth between advertisers and networks regarding the value of different audience demographics. There seems to be lots of speculation as to who is the most difficult age to get, and then what the value is for that age group as an audience.

My question is how will this continue to affect programming? Chozick points out that more television shows are appealing to baby boomers by re-imagining series from the ‘60s and featuring mature actors. James mentions that the Tosh.0 format has existed before, but its participation and understanding of web culture is likely to be replicated. It seems to me that whatever advertisers are will to pay top dollar for will be what most networks try to program. Only time will tell…