Via Romenesko, here's a hilarious item in which ABC's Charlie Gibson, the anchor of "World News Tonight," fails to grasp why there are so many ads targeting old people on his show:
Want younger viewers for the evening news? Ditch the geezer ads, says ABC World News anchor Charlie Gibson.
If networks are serious about luring pre-Social Security eyeballs, they should replace commercials for adult diapers, dentures and "patent medicines" with spots for younger, sexier products, in Gibson's view.
The current commercials "bespeak an older audience," says Gibson, in town last week to anchor World News from the National Constitution Center. "I'd rather have car ads.
"When you put on ads mostly for medicines, you're saying 'We want an older audience.' I would like ads that say 'We have a younger audience here.' "
Not likely, Chas.
Median age of World News viewers this season is 59.9, according to Nielsen Media Research. It's 60.3 for Brian Williams' No. 1 NBC Nightly News, and 59.5 for Katie Couric's CBS Evening News.
Networks target 25-to-54-year-olds for news.
Apparently they don't teach economics in anchor school. The advertisers who will pay the most to reach an older audience are the ones who sell products to them. And in any case, the way to attract a young audience is to put on a more interesting newscast, not to run car ads.
Update 10/10 12:16 PM: For more on demographic targeting in network news, see this post on how newscast content targets the interests of the younger women who are the most lucrative marginal viewers of the evening news.
Of course.
But I think in some ways it reveals a frustration that the serious news people must have. What would bring a younger audience? "The Daily Show"!
I don't know if I'm entirely comfortable with a comedy show taking over the nightly news spot, but it's how the less-informed people of my generation get their news. Of course the more-informed ones get it from blogs and, via blog links, newpaper web sites.
Posted by: Equal Opportunity Cynic | October 10, 2006 at 12:12 PM
Also what makes Gibson think that younger viewers would watch the news for the commercials?
Most of my under-30 friends have Tivo to weed that crap out and they're watching cable news.
Posted by: Seth | October 10, 2006 at 05:58 PM
While the idea of young people getting their news purely from the Daily Show is rather unnerving, I don't believe that most Daily Show fans do get their info solely from that show. After all, in order to get quite a few of the jokes, you have to have a wider range of knowledge about domestic and international politics.
Posted by: Rick | October 14, 2006 at 08:09 PM
I am with Charlie Gibson on this. I am so sick of these commercials for medicine, as I am sure physicians are too, but I am older than the age above, and because of these dreadful commercials, I will not watch ABC news any longer. What I do is tape it,and pass over the news. This is the only country that has drug commercials. Its pretty sickening
Posted by: Nicole Marcus | December 14, 2006 at 02:15 PM