America's Fastest Growing and Wealthiest Demo

[DavidEduardo]

It's people over 70 and radio should be aware.

"Demographic pop quiz: What’s the fastest growing population segment in the U.S.? Answer: 70+. Now 40 million strong, this generation that came of age in the post-World World II era of economic expansion is projected to reach 55 million by 2031—growing by 1.5 million annually."

Meet America’s Fastest Growing, Wealthiest Population Segment.

Demographic pop quiz: What’s the fastest growing population segment in the U.S.? Answer: 70+. Now 40 million strong, this generation that came of age in the post-World World II era

www.insideradio.com

 

[Kelly A]

It's people over 70 and radio should be aware.

Makes sense, but as has been discussed here many times; advertisers and agencies who buy radio still don't care. TV gets the lions share of the senior market. The digi-nets like MeTV, COZI, ION, and alike, are seeing consistent increases 65+, which also makes sense. Local TV News still owns the older viewers, but some erosion has taken place as higher numbers of seniors hang out in Facebook rooms.
Was sitting in traffic last Monday sampling one of the right-wing talk shows on SXM. Most of the spots were pretty much the same as what you would hear on the NASCAR, Golf, or news channels like FOX or CNN. That's pretty standard, because they're buying demographic spread, not specific formats.

 

[Greg Strickland]

Thank you for posting that. Very interesting item. I researched briefly, and found this table copied below. If it is not OK to post screen shot of US Census webpage, sorry, please delete. Note the table says estimate, US Census website takes a while to navigate, this is what I found without a deep dive.

btw- I've heard that older folks are not as likely to be motivated by advertising for a product. Unless it is targeted precisely to their concerns, which can be health, money, mortality, fear of change, etc. Those are not exactly fun topics that cross-over to younger demos. I think there is a good reason why some AC stations reach down in demo when choosing a song from '80s or '90s.

 

[Don CT]

My grandmother would always complain to me that there was nothing on TV worth watching. I said, that's because they don't care about you anymore. Why would they shut out a segment of the market that still buys things.

 

[JBraddock]

The 'Baby Boomers' are now between 57 and 75 years old. But if that census data is accurate, it looks like there's no appreciable population dip in Gen X, Gen Y (Millennials) or Gen Z.

I was under the impression that the incentive to continue to target Baby Boomers as they aged was that there was a population dropoff in following generations, but that appears to not be the case.

Another view:

 

[landtuna]

It's people over 70 and radio should be aware.

I've been saying that on here for years. (Finally, a demo I belong to.)

 

[Miss Tuned]

In the UK, Boom Radio started last year on national digital broadcast platforms - a very obvious attempt to target the baby-boomer audience, who are perceived to be more wealthy and in recent years more willing to spend on things like home improvements and vacations.

I've listened - I'm younger than their target, so I'm perhaps not in the best position to critique the output, but it feels old to me. The challenge has to be to create a format that appeals to the older listener without the format itself sounding like a pastiche of 1960s or 1970s radio. Boom Radio have gone for a set of presenters who listeners may or may not remember from contemporary radio of their youth, but does that have to be the only way? Do you have to have been there to play the music? I'm not sure.

This is very much a demographic sweet spot for advertisers, an often fairly affluent (and thanks to improving living conditions and medical advances, ever lengthier) period after retirement but before a person goes into residential care and reaches the final few years.

 

[TheBigA]

It only matters if you can translate that demo into revenue. John Sebastian in Phoenix seems to have figured it out:

John Sebastian
November 23 at 1:24 PM ·
The WOW Factor has our third phenomenal share in a row for Nielsen week 3 for November…a 4.3 share 6+!!!
Again, WOW is the #1 music station In Phoenix in Time Spent Listening, by an ever widening margin over second place.

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

My grandmother would always complain to me that there was nothing on TV worth watching. I said, that's because they don't care about you anymore. Why would they shut out a segment of the market that still buys things.

True the issue here is the commercial media has to focus on Gen Y and Z. Yes the Millennials are reaching mid-life along with the young end of Gen X.
I know 90's entering classic hits stations playlists in recent years for a Retro 90's feel due to stations like KRTH and WCBS-FM having to aim for the GenX demos.

2000's that's yet to be proven here if they belong on a classic hits stations or wait until 2025-2030 to find out.

 

[vchimpanzee]

I've listened - I'm younger than their target, so I'm perhaps not in the best position to critique the output, but it feels old to me. The challenge has to be to create a format that appeals to the older listener without the format itself sounding like a pastiche of 1960s or 1970s radio. Boom Radio have gone for a set of presenters who listeners may or may not remember from contemporary radio of their youth, but does that have to be the only way? Do you have to have been there to play the music? I'm not sure.

I can't believe it has been 15 years since I listened to Stardust but I remember feeling like I was hearing new music and thinking it was strange the songs were actually so old. Somehow they got the presentation right if I could react as if "this music's not old."

 

[semoochie]

It only matters if you can translate that demo into revenue. John Sebastian in Phoenix seems to have figured it out:

I worked for a "back-fence" Talk station that registered the market's highest TSL in a Birch poll. Working with total numbers, I found that we were without rival, "#1 in 65+! This was about 40 years ago and the total audience was in the twos.

 

[DavidEduardo]

It only matters if you can translate that demo into revenue. John Sebastian in Phoenix seems to have figured it out:

While they have added some local accounts, they are not billing significantly.

Part of that is that the success of the format is very recent. It took over a year of tweaking to get it performing nicely, but the 6 book averages agencies use don't fully show this. And when agencies look at rankers, the almost never include ages over 55.

There should be a decent local market, but Phoenix as a retirement community stopped being a consideration decades ago and the market is actually younger than the national average.

Sebastian figured out how to appeal to older demos, just as Al Hamm did about 50 years ago. Music of Your Life never billed well, and was relegated to secondary AM stations for the most part where it could be nicely profitable but not a gold mine.

 

[DavidEduardo]

Makes sense, but as has been discussed here many times; advertisers and agencies who buy radio still don't care. TV gets the lions share of the senior market.

TV´s secondary cable and broadcast channels figured out that there were products that would advertise when full video was available. So we get old folks walking the beach with a dog to show the benefits of prescription meds and grandparents playing with the kids to show how great those vitamins work. And we have walkers, electric stairs, walk in baths and a lot more.

All those clients work because the ads don't sell the product, they sell the visual display of how the products improve life for users. That requires video.

Radio is at a disadvantage for the categories that TV thrives on.

 

[kfbkfb]

Maybe the MeTV et al. advertisers could make audio only ads including some of the sound (and audio effects) from their TV ads, trying to tie the audio into memories of the TV ads for the same product/service.

My inspiration for this approach is the radio dramas common before TV, the sound effects were meant to transport the listener to another place/time (and in the few I've heard on WBBM AM, were very effective in doing that).


Kirk Bayne

 

[TheBigA]

Maybe the MeTV et al. advertisers could make audio only ads including some of the sound (and audio effects) from their TV ads,

There's a reason why those advertisers buy TV and not radio.

 

[kfbkfb]

I was thinking primarily TV ads, reinforced with directly related (audio segments) radio ads (maybe just 30 second ads).


Kirk Bayne

 

[landtuna]

The one thing missing from "senior's" TV is products grandparents might buy for their children/grandchildren/great grandchildren. Advertisers mostly present products for old agers and are ignoring IMHO a gold mine.

 

[Kelly A]

The one thing missing from "senior's" TV is products grandparents might buy for their children/grandchildren/great grandchildren. Advertisers mostly present products for old agers and are ignoring IMHO a gold mine.

That's what shopping channels on cable do. Sell to older TV watchers who buy gifts for their family members because they like the presenter's.

 

[Mikey Radio]

The one thing missing from "senior's" TV is products grandparents might buy for their children/grandchildren/great grandchildren. Advertisers mostly present products for old agers and are ignoring IMHO a gold mine.

The other thing advertisers seems to miss is that, yes, older folks are interested in the healthcare products, insurance programs, funeral planning and retirement/financial planning services that are available to them, but while many older people realize they're not 30 or 40 years old anymore, they don't necessarily see themselves as "elderly" or what were traditionally called "senior citizens". People are living much longer lives and many are trying to experience them to the fullest. Retirement isn't seen as a time when one goes home to sit in a rocker and wait for death, but to do things they maybe couldn't years earlier, due to time and financial constraints. Many who retire are potentially looking at 20 or more good years before they start to "slow down", yet there seems to be an extreme overload of ads for the stuff I mentioned above on TV networks or channels that are watched primarily by that demographic - to the point where it just gets depressing.

 

[AbrahamJSimpson]

And how many grandparents (heck, parents) need advertising to find things to buy for the kiddos? Let’s be real. The kids can share precisely what they want. No advertising required.