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What Keeps Boomers Tuned In?

Feb 17, 2008  •  Post A Comment

Nearly 80 million Americans comprise the baby boomer generation—men and women born between 1946 and 1964. These are the people who are truly the television generation, having grown up with the industry. They have no memory of life before TV. They are also the most affluent watchers of television.
So how do today’s programmers, network executives and creative pros engage this influential market? What keeps boomers tuned in? Those were some of the questions addressed by David Marans, executive vice president of IAG Research, in a recent interview with TelevisionWeek correspondent Allison J. Waldman.
TelevisionWeek: Which shows currently are appealing to baby boomers?
David Marans: Not appealing—that’s Nielsen. The ratings tell you how many watch; our research tells you about the experience. Now, this season has been a little bit wacky. First of all, there’s a difference between how much attention is paid in an original episode as opposed to a repeat episode. Sometimes that gap is small, sometimes it’s significant.
Here’s a list of shows for the season thus far, late September to January, from the prime-time networks, that baby boomers had the most engagement with compared to other shows on the network: For ABC, it’s “Desperate Housewives,” a comedy-drama. For CBS, it’s “How I Met Your Mother.” That’s done very well for a couple of years, and that’s a comedy. For Fox, it was a brand-new show, “Back to You,” starring Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton, both baby boomers themselves. Now, to go in the other direction, on NBC, of all the shows that are on, “Heroes” is the top show. It’s almost bereft of baby boomers in the lead roles. That’s a sci-fi/fantasy drama. On the CW, it’s “The Game,” which is a sitcom.
TVWeek: What about on the cable networks?
Mr. Marans: Here’s a couple of shows within a network that has the most engagement on that network for baby boomers. On Bravo, it’s “Workout.” For Food Network, “The Next Food Network Star.” FX, which has all kinds of shows, it’s “The Riches,” a new drama. For TNT, it was “Heartland.” “The Closer” from the same network also did very, very well, but No. 1 was “Heartland.” USA’s No. 1 was “Dead Zone.”
TVWeek: What do these results seem to indicate?
Mr. Marans: If you look at the whole list, you have hours, half-hours, comedies, dramas, reality … new shows, old shows. What does this mean? It means that typically an ad that appears on these programs will benefit by the attentiveness baby boomers are paying to the show and there will be a ripple effect. We’ve seen it over and over again.
TVWeek: What is the importance of engaging baby boomers?
Mr. Marans: The only reason that’s really important from a business perspective is that in 140 million surveys of programs, we have found that the more attention a viewer pays to a program, the more likely they are to pay attention and recall the ads in the program.
TVWeek: Are programmers likely to alter their thinking about how to appeal to baby boomers based on this research?
Mr. Marans: You’d have to ask them, but I will tell you this. IAG measure 23 networks and 21 of them are our clients. So the data is being provided to the people at the networks and cable [channels].
TVWeek: How do you gather this research?
Mr. Marans: In a typical day, we have an online panel getting data from 1,500 baby boomers. They take surveys about the programs they watched the night before. Overall, 5,000 people are interviewed; 1,500 are baby boomers. To keep the data fresh, the sample has a high turnover. People stay on the panel about three weeks or so. In a typical month, we have about 12,000 different baby boomers taking surveys about programs on the air.
TVWeek: What are you learning about baby boomers from the data you’ve collected?
Mr. Marans: They are not a homogeneous group overall. It is homogeneous in the way that this is a group that constitutes the first generation that was exposed to television. They grew up with TV, so it’s quite interesting to see how engaged they are with the medium. Your readers probably have DVRs, but 75% of the public doesn’t have one. It’s only a 25% penetration. And DVR users only use the DVR half the time. They like to watch things live, too.
TVWeek: Are baby boomers locked in to favorite TV shows?
Mr. Marans: Many baby boomers are promiscuous in their viewing habits. There are people who will watch a certain program, whether it’s “The Hills” or “24,” and never miss an episode, but that’s not typical. This group is different in that unlike the previous generation, TV was always there. But they’re different from the next generation in that that generation has always had cable TV. Baby boomers, essentially, grew up with a couple of choices, not hundreds of choices.
TVWeek: What have you learned about baby boomers’ engagement with alternate media?
Mr. Marans: We’re starting to measure engagement on mobile systems. We are also now measuring ads shown in movie theaters. What is the engagement for boomers when an ad is shown in a Regal Cinema as opposed to a network TV show? We’re also expanding to streaming video. How does an episode of “X” do in terms of attentiveness to the show when it’s appearing on a Web site versus on the network? The networks have a major interest in that. So we’re looking at four screens—maybe four-and-a-half, because TV includes DVRs. The advertising content is different in all these screens, certainly on the movie screens.
TVWeek: Outside of product placement or integration, how are advertisers engaging baby boomers through commercial breaks?
Mr. Marans: They’re doing something that we call hybrids; that’s placements that are not in the program but in the commercial pod. For example, there was a “Smallville” episode that had in the commercial space something called “Smallville Legends,” which were sponsored by Toyota Yaris. Part of their goal is to show the advertising in a unique way, to blend the network or the show with the product and get people not to change the channel. So they showed this little comic book with great visuals, telling a story about some of the superheroes, featured by Toyota Yaris. It wasn’t an in-program placement because it’s not in the program; it was in the commercial pod. That type of thing is happening more and more.
Another idea is an old one revisited: sponsorship. When Cadillac sponsored the FX show “Damages,” and showed Glenn Close standing beside that car at the end of the show, it scored tremendously.
TVWeek: What does this mean to baby boomers?
Mr. Marans: More questions. How will baby boomers, the first group to grow up on TV, going to react and watch so much more content in different ways? Will they be more attentive to streaming? Less so? They are certainly a group that could afford some of the many entertainment devices. What will they do? We’re not sure. The jury is still out on them. n

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