So You Say You Know Your Audience
When you work on a project or in an industry for a protracted period of time, you find yourself getting comfortable. While there's nothing wrong with comfort - and its related cousin confidence - it's easy to get complacent and to make certain assumptions.The classic lesson about assumptions - Felix Unger's remonstration "When you assume, you make an ASS of U and ME" - is universally true. But how often do we take it to heart about our audience?
For example, I would make certain assumptions about the demographic of the Internet audience for broadcast media viewers. Namely, I would think they'd be on the younger side - say, in the 24-35 range mostly. I was pleasantly surprised then, to read a recent Research Brief from the Center for Media Research that told a much different story.
Notably, if you add up the figures of those 45 years of age or older, it makes up 73.58% of the audience. That's right - nearly three-fourths of those who consume network offerings online are over the age of 45.
Was it surprising to you? I didn't see it coming.
Labels: customer relations, study
Posted by Scott Monty at 7:58 AM
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Scott, yes I'm surprised by the numbers. Any way you add it up, the "older" crowd is bigger than I thought.
However, I'm concerned about the actual survey results ... at least the way they're posted. First, there's a category of 35 - 49, and then categories for 45+, 55+ and 65+. The result of these overlapping and ambiguous categories is that the total = 115%.
I'm not sure what to make of it, but when I see this, I begin to seriously question the results. Let's hope they do a better job next time.