Thursday

Boomer fare

Debunking myths
about older viewers

For one, you no longer reach them whenever you buy TV

By Kevin Downey

   If you look at things one way, though it's seldom reported as such, CBS is by far the No. 1 network at the halfway point in the broadcast season, enjoying a two-point lead over NBC.
   CBS’s rating is up three-tenths of a point since last season and the network has seven of the 10 highest rated programs in primetime with “JAG,” “The Guardian” and “Judging Amy” ranking alongside higher profile shows like “CSI” and “Everybody Loves Raymond.”
   Doesn’t sound right?
   That’s because those rankings are based on adults 50-plus, the demographic often recognized for being the fastest growing and most affluent in the country but one still widely ignored by advertisers.
    “You have the whole baby boomer generation, the oldest of which are now 57 years old,” says Brad Adgate, senior vice president and corporate research director at Horizon Media.
   “The irony is that nobody targets them. You’re starting to see that change, but a lot of advertisers overlook the fact that they have a lot of leisure time and have more discretionary income.”
   The oversight usually comes down to an assumption that the mature market is a homogenous group that watches about twice as much television as the average person, meaning they will be reached by any media plan that includes TV.
   That is becoming less true for two reasons.
   The first is that as the population ages, the gap between the youngest and oldest members of the mature market is getting wider, with distinct media habits defined as much by lifestyle as by age.
   The second reason is that as the broadcast networks increasingly focus on younger viewers, the mature market is drifting off to shows they can identify with. That may explain why all the broadcast networks are getting younger except CBS, which is already the oldest and getting older.
   Although CBS has made attempts to reach younger viewers, the network can take comfort in the fact that the mature market has remained relatively loyal to broadcast.
   While cable TV is taking viewers of all ages away from broadcast, the aggregate rating for adults 50-plus dropped only three-tenths of a point for the networks, compared to the same time last season. As a point of comparison, broadcast’s rating in the adult 18-49 demo fell seven-tenths of a point, based on data from Magna Global USA.
   Still, the networks – following ad dollars – are putting most of their energy into reaching the young.
   “That confounds me,” says Courtney Day, senior vice president and director of marketing and client services at TSN, a targeted marketing organization focusing on aging baby boomers and older consumers.
   “It’s amazing how many people aren’t watching the networks anymore. You don’t have to portray older people to reach them, but I think there is so much out there that people consider to be trashy.”
   Some viewers in the mature market are moving over to syndicated programs and cable TV.
   Cable’s rating among adults 50-plus is up four-tenths of a point, compared to a one-tenth increase among adults 18-49.
   Moreover, while a smaller percentage of mature viewers are watching the broadcast networks, the distinction between shows for younger people and shows for older people is getting clearer.
   For the week of January 6, for example, Fox’s “Joe Millionaire” had a 10.1 rating among adults 18-49 while it only had a 3.5 for adults 50-plus. In the same week, the rating for NBC’s “Mr. Sterling” was only a 3.5 among 18-49s but a 9 for the 50-plus crowd.
   "If you want to target the mature market, you can’t say they watch everything,” says Adgate.
   “It’s still important that you target them with shows they watch because you want to avoid waste.”
   Marketers say to reach the mature market advertisers need to specifically look at the media habits of people within that group.
   The mature market is expanding, with people 50 years old on the lower end and above 85 on the upper end, so it needs to be broken into smaller groups. Lifestyles for those age groups can obviously be much different and so can their media habits.
   “The challenge is you need to talk to this group not so much based on their age but based on the message you want to get to them,” says Day.
   “You have to look at their lifestyle and income and figure out unique consumer preferences within subgroups.”

-Kevin Downey is a staff writer for Media Life.

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