Get Honest about Your News Demos
by Graeme Newell
gnewell@602communications.com
http://www.602communications.com

If you ask a typical newsroom staffer the target age of their news viewer, most will tell you they're after 18-54 year old viewers.  The truth is you just can't create a show that would appeal to such a wildly divergent group of people.  There is no such thing as a newscast that appeals to a college kid, a stay-at-home dad and a woman planning her retirement years.  The truth is that most news producers create a newscast they themselves would enjoy watching.  That means that by default, many newscasts are created by 20-something producers who know little about the desires or lifestyles of most of their audience, the older viewer.

In our heart of hearts we can delude ourselves into thinking we can put together a newscast that will magically bring these juicy younger demos to the television, but it rarely happens.  American Idol has been one of the few shows that has been able to cross the magic divide on demos.  Both young and old watch the show.  Almost no one in news has been able to do this.

Studies show that getting 25-34 year old viewers to watch news is incredibly difficult.  Most of them don't have the time or the interest to sit down and watch a traditional newscast.  Many of them are harried parents who sometimes don't have time to sleep or bathe, let alone watch a leisurely half hour of news.  Getting 18-24 year olds to watch news is darn near impossible these days.  While this group still watches a lot of TV, broadcast news is something that holds little appeal.  You might think they are getting their news off the internet, but studies show that isn't the case.  They just don't care about news and live blissfully uninformed about local issues.

My point is that we all need to get real about our demos.  As much as we would like it to be so, most people are not interested in watching local news.  When we shoot for the stars trying to produce a single newscast that appeals to all age groups, we end up pleasing no one.

Producing news for 18-24 year olds is a dumb idea and 25-34 year olds will need some powerful persuasion to be lured in.  When we give producers unrealistic demo targets for newscasts, we make the demos meaningless.  When coaching your staff, give them a demo that is comprehensible.  I have a very hard time imagining a newscast that could appeal to both an 18-year-old and a 54-year-old.

Don't just give producers an age range.  Give them a full bio of the audience you're after.  Cut your age range down to something a producer can get her brain around.  I once had a client who put up posters in his newsroom with pictures and bios of each person in their target news audience.  The poster showed a family of four who lived in an outlying suburb.  Dad was a 41-year-old welder who spent a lot of time bowling.  Mom was an administrative assistant at the local factory and was very involved in her local schools.  The poster listed hobbies, likes and dislikes, and time of day they typically viewed news.  When describing your perfect viewer, stay away from a lot of statistics.  Instead, talk about typical viewers and the things they do on a daily basis.  Create a real person and give them specific traits the team can understand.