DavidEduardo said:
As I have explained before, advertisers look for return on investment for advertising. If it costs more to create a sale than the profit on the sale, then particular groups are not targeted. Older consumers have money, but it taks more advertising to sway them than some other groups... so there is essentially no agency.driven advertising on radio for 55+.
And, in most markets, oldies is used by only about 10% of 55+ listeners at any given time. Much bigger is news, talk, sports, AC, country (in much of the US), classic rock and certain ethnic formats.
Because there are many other 55+ targeted stations (mainly country and N/T) that are more efficient at it. Look, as much-loved as the Oldies format is on these boards and a certain segment of the population, Oldies stations were almost never THE dominant choice in most markets- they got their share of good ratings but it's been rare that Oldies outperformed everybody else, let's say 35+, even 50+.
And, part of the problem is Oldies came on in the late 80s as basically a late 50s-to-early 70s music format and stayed that way for nearly 20 years without evolution. Several years ago, when it was obvious most hung on too long to the original premise and discovered most of their audience had aged past 55, it was too late to catch up.
In the end, it is the decision of ADVERTISERS (we're not talking mom & pop shops and mostly direct sales, I'm referring to major dollar accounts) how to use media. And, they simply do not use radio to target 55+. Even in television, the network with the "oldest" perception and audience, CBS, has spent the past number of years infusing younger-targeted programming into their lineups to avoid having an audience that's too old for most major advertisers, which is how you generate revenue and stay in business.
Odd that it's a "radio only" trend. Advertising on televison has a heavy emphasis on baby boomer targeted advertising!! In fact, it is the fastest growing demo in terms of "new" tv advertising. Why doesn't radio have its share of prescription drug advertisers, financial planning advertisers, insurance advertisers? It certainly isn't the case of the demo not being valuable....its about radio not finding an adequate way to serve the demo.
