NY Magazine: Median Age Of News Channel Viewers

Fox News? 68 years, two years higher than last poll.
CNN News? 64 years.
MSNBC? 60 years.

So does that mean old people are smarter and care more about what is happening than most Americans? Or do the news channels have to worry they will become obsolete as the baby boomers start to die off?

It seems like the lifespans of new trends are shorter and shorter every year. Facebook s supposed to be obsolete by 2017. VHS seemed to last longer than DVD's who have been replaced by downloads.

While I'm more connected to online news than broadcast, I share your concerns and am alarmed by the die-off of media sources and also, their in-depth presentation. Online, it seems that the trend is to replace the "whole piece" with a twitter headline, suggesting that the rest of the information is just fluff. Readers figure they can be sure to get a further "twitter headline" update if the first report was wrong.

It does seem like the youth do have a shorter attention span. "I don't have time to read all that."

Yep older people are smarter and wiser. They can wrap their minds around a subject for longer than 3 minutes unlike the youngsters. What is twitter? J/K

FredHayek wrote: Fox News? 68 years, two years higher than last poll.
CNN News? 64 years.
MSNBC? 60 years.

So does that mean old people are smarter and care more about what is happening than most Americans? Or do the news channels have to worry they will become obsolete as the baby boomers start to die off?

It seems like the lifespans of new trends are shorter and shorter every year. Facebook s supposed to be obsolete by 2017. VHS seemed to last longer than DVD's who have been replaced by downloads.

GreatGran wrote: Yep older people are smarter and wiser. They can wrap their minds around a subject for longer than 3 minutes unlike the youngsters. What is twitter? J/K

FredHayek wrote: Fox News? 68 years, two years higher than last poll.
CNN News? 64 years.
MSNBC? 60 years.

So does that mean old people are smarter and care more about what is happening than most Americans? Or do the news channels have to worry they will become obsolete as the baby boomers start to die off?

It seems like the lifespans of new trends are shorter and shorter every year. Facebook s supposed to be obsolete by 2017. VHS seemed to last longer than DVD's who have been replaced by downloads.

GreatGran is older but not smarter by any means she just think she is.

WSJ ...delivered every morning (paper edition).....at 66 Years young I like to read the paper
with my morning coffee... :coffee-News:

I used to be a diehard morning paper reader but then the Post stopped delivering to South Park.

The Post stopped delivering to our home too, even though we were just 1/4 or so from the mail drop where the paper landed instead. I was totally addicted and really missed it, so did our beloved dog Lucky, who enjoyed retrieving it from the yard.

Maybe I should have given the poor delivery person some Christmas cookies or something, but by the time I figured that out, it was too late.

Advertisers generally target the 25-54 age group, I think because they spend the most.

With median ages over 60 (assuming Fred is correct), I'd think those cable shows would have to find sponsors who have products that target the senior age group. I haven't noticed that, but I haven't paid attention either.

I wonder what the median age of newspaper subscribers is? My guess is it would be up there as well.

Edited to add...

Here is one graph of newspaper readers, and yes the age is up there. I'd guess the age of subscibers would run even higher...



http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/2013/01/newspaper-audience-aged-severely-since.html

One reason advertisers like the young is that they are more likely to try new products. Lots of prostrate medicine and walk in tubs advertised on cable news.