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TV Viewers' Average Age Hits 50
Ant writes "Variety reports on a recent study that says TV viewership's median age is outside the 18-49 years demographic: "The broadcast networks have grown older than ever — if they were a person, they wouldn't even be a part of TV's target demo anymore." These totals exclude DVR users, and apparently the oldest since they started tracking it. Of course you know what the means ... TV is for old people! The internet has confirmed it.
Not to mention, retired people don't like to pay for excessive things like extra TV signals. They'll take the channels they can get via rabbit ears and read the newspaper.
You do realize that current 50-somethings and 60-something aren't in that category, right? In the past, older people didn't pay excessive things because they grew up with the Great Depression and World War II, and were taught not to be wasteful.
The 50 and 60 somethings of today are Baby Boomers -- the so-called "me" generation. Most of them are so self-absorbed, that they can't imagine a world without luxuries they've taken for granted for many years, including cable TV and, at least for some, the Internet.
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Anybody notice something missing from the broadcast (over-the-air) channels from the last few years?
10-20 years ago... you would find nearly half of your local NBA, MLB, and NHL games on broadcast, and as time went on the other half (mostly home games) would show up on HBO-like pay cable. Now, nearly all the games not on national TV are found on one basic cable network at least partly owned by the team. And cable bills went up a few dollars a month when that network moved from pay to basic status or got started in the first place.
News coverage has been cut back too. The idea of having a studio in every country we had friendly relations with has gone by the wayside. Longform presantations of things like the political conventions have been shifted to basic cable networks.
There used to just be "The People's Court" for court shows. Now there's enough syndicated judge-personality shows on broadcast to fill an entire daytime lineup. Cheapest to produce wins, the only thing cheaper is Jerry Springer and his knockoffs.
It's said what our seniors are getting for television signals these days, no wonder why those of us that can afford it get cable or DBS.
OK, I'm sick of this. Some pedant who probably doesn't know UMVUE from UMP always chimes in when someone mentions the words 'average' and 'median' within 1000 syllables of each other.
I have a Master's degree in Statistics, a BS in mathematics, and work as a statistician.
There is really not strict mathematical definition of 'average'. There is a concept of averages as measures of central tendency. However, I've just consulted three of my theoretical statistical inference texts, and not a single one of them has an index entry for the word 'average'. They of course have index entries for 'mean' and 'median'.
Both mean and median are types of averages, neither inherently 'better' than the other. You won't find the word 'average' used in much technical literature because of this. You specify your statistic more precisely than that.
So the next time you see the word 'average', don't freak out about it. If someone doesn't specify what they mean, ask them, that's an important question, and something you should think about. You're just arguing semantics and come off as uninformed, if not a bit annoying.
That's interesting. So maybe you can help with this: what does the MODE button do on my remote? Make the programming even more average?
my insights may be modded Funny, but at least some of my jokes are modded Insightful
No. From the fine article:
When live-plus-7 DVR viewing is factored in, the nets (except CW and Univision) drop by a year -- which still reps the oldest median age ever for the nets.
So does this mean that today's youth are outside riding bikes, skipping, playing games, building tree forts, etc?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
I'm pretty sure MTV was cool for at least a week. Maybe longer.
Also, the OMFG crowd didn't come about until sometime in the mid 90s.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Actually, I was tuned in to MTV for the very first broadcast and for nearly a year it really was extremely cool. There were so few music videos back then, MTV was desperate and would play anything anyone sent in. New, old, mainstream, underground; it was a real free-for-all type of broadcast, largely formula free and totally unpredictable. Sadly, it just didn't stay that way very long.
Caveat Utilitor
3b. Internet Killed the TV Star
Pointless semantic arguments, uninformed annoying commentary, and disregard of nuanced definitions?
My God, they're right! The Internet is replacing television!
my insights may be modded Funny, but at least some of my jokes are modded Insightful