Know Your Demo

Television, much as I love it, is not so much an art form that exists outside of capitalism. Or, at least, mainstream television doesn’t. There’s always the trade-off between making something awesome and making something that a large enough group of people will want to see; some shows are able to walk that line, others fail miserably. (Referring both to awesome shows that fail, and terrible shows that somehow last season after season.)

Because television is a business, and it’s all about the money. Where does the money come from? Commercials. Sure, some profit can now come from DVD sets and tie-in merchandise, and there have been a few success stories of canceled shows being somewhat resurrected based on these sales (Firefly, Futurama, and Family Guy spring to mind. I guess it also helps if your show starts with an ‘F’). But the majority of the bread-and-butter of shows is advertisements (and syndication, which requires having enough of an audience to get to the syndication selling point). Basically, what they (networks, generally) want is eyeballs. But not necessarily your eyeballs.

There are two numbers generally mentioned in quick ratings overviews: the total number of viewers, and the demo. That’s right, the demo. There’s one main demographic that networks focus on, and that’s people aged 18-49. Shows that can get those people to watch are prime real estate for advertisements, as they are considered the most likely to a) have disposable income and b) dispose of it. Those are the eyeballs everyone cares about.

There are a few other things that matter. Some shows have, with middling-to-decent ratings, been helped by the fact that they are popular with the “earning > $100,000” demo (Friday Night Lights… another ‘F’). Males 18-32 are believed to settle into their brand preferences during that time period of their lives, so that subset is also weighted heavily. And some networks are just looking for a different audience; the CW (and before it, the WB) looks for the niche of girls aged 11-17.

Some people claim the current ratings system is outdated, and they’re probably right. Especially with DVRs, watching online, and illegal downloads. But currently, it’s still what the networks are looking at when they’re deciding which shows to keep and which to cancel. It’s the nature of the business, and it doesn’t look like it’ll be changing anytime soon.

(This, of course, doesn’t refer as much to cable channels, which try to find more niche audiences, and premium cable, which makes its money off of subscriptions.)