BRNout said:
imhomerjay said:
Facts are pesky things, no? The fact is the ratings are up in their target demo...but don't let your mind be troubled with facts. Instead, just go about thinking apples and oranges are the same thing. ;D
A few hours of informercials in the early morning. Wow, wake me when there's something meaningful to report.
You always seem to insist on that, but I'd like to see the data to back up the statements. And, the words "target demo" are suspicious too. I'd wager that overall viewership is down significantly, but perhaps 18-34 is up a little. Which wouldn't be saying much since that was not the group that the channel was designed for in the first place.
Fully 75 percent of the channels on cable are after that demo, to the detriment of everyone else's programming. They're not all going to hit the target, in fact few are. It's a smaller group than the older demo and the strategy has consistently resulted in smaller and smaller overall viewership for networks who go after it.
Remember, doubling an audience of one results in two. Even a 100% ratings increase with small numbers like that (ok maybe 1 is pushing it a little!) is hardly significant. :
TV Land isn't shooting for 18-34; it's 25-54 with a core of 40-54--a less crowded niche.
40 year olds are children of the '70s and '80s; much of the 'original' programming on TV Land was old rerun material to them in their youth. That some of them may still enjoy seeing it doesn't mean enough do to make it a viable full-time model, much as you seem to cling to the idea that a network may not change its programming to match the new audiences that enter its demographic range. (Hey, I
hate MTV now, but I'm supposed to: I'm long-since out of the demo, and most of us know kids don't think what their parents watched is remotely cool.)
Whatever the percentage of networks aiming at a specific demo, there has to be a reason for it. You may not like it, I may not like it--but I understand that it's advertising that drives the decisions. Any smart businessperson will go where the money is to be made. You can hate it all you want or try to deny that it's reality, but it's the way it goes. What many of the networks are doing is serving a subset of that audience: Food Network being just one example. Do you really think they have any illusions of becoming a top-10 network in the 18-34 demo? Of course not. But they deliver a very desirable audience to advertisers. For "food-specific" marketers, buying time on networks like Food and HGTV might be enough. For some broader-leaning companies, they just combine the various channels that deliver segments of that demo and buy them as a larger group. And fair or not, they pay more for the audiences in their demos.
And yes, we've all read the "I'm in the XX-XX demo, and I don't like [fill in the blank], and no one I know watches it, either." Setting aside the silly notion that any of us really know the TV viewing habits of everyone we know, anecdotal examples tinged with the long-established proof that people quite often tend to associate with those of similar tastes, views and interests and not those who may differ from them (case in point: politics) mean precisely zero. They make good stories, but prove nothing. Likewise, not being a Nielsen home and not knowing anyone from one doesn't mean the sampling process isn't reasonably reflective of the general population. I for one dislike reality shows save for quiz/game shows. But my disdain for them is demonstrably not shared by the full population of my peers. So be it. But it's just silliness and illustrative of a lack of busienss savvy to suggest a network will fail/suffer because they're not programming to
my tastes or those of
my friends and family.
I don't get High School Reunion, for example--but it's been reported the show was getting about 800,000 viewers and the season finale beat its year-ago time slot performance by almost 90%. Those are cold, hard facts. A lot of people out there don't share my taste. And like every network under the sun no matter their individual target demos, TV Land will have its share of duds. But the occassional flop on TV Land or Weather Channel or whever doesn't prove a
strategic failure, just a
tactical one on a particular show.
