We-Who-Run-Newsrooms live and die (get fired) based on the number of people ages 18-49 or 25-54 that watch our newscasts. Those ratings are figured every February, May, July, November.
Next Wednesday, I will no longer matter, according to Nielsen, the company that determines who watches television and when. I will be 55 years old. And I'm not alone.
I have more disposable income than I did at 18. More than I had at 25. More than I had at 35. I have more buying power but the Powers-That-Be who determine my professional fate. Still, they say I'm too old to matter.
I say, "Hold the bus headed the old folks home."
I'm still here, I'm still buying stuff.
Most of the time with cash!
I want a new kitchen and a deck and I want to turn my unfinished basement into a Man Cave for John. He wants a pool table.
Don't stop paying attention to me, retailers. I still matter.
I'm not the only one who thinks this way:
"...the current state of media evaluation and advertising targeting is dominated by a fundamentally flawed, and increasingly anachronistic, age-based process. This process is resulting in the misallocation of billions of dollars in media expenditures and in an imbalance in the programming mix of the media."
It's time for Nielsen to realize that 55 is the new 47.
