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The traditional television audience is getting older and young people are further removed from traditional television. These perceptions, widely held in the television industry, are supported by data. The increase in traditional television audiences is not just happening in Spain. A few weeks ago, the New York Times published an article titled “TV Networks’ Last Hope: the Boomers,” which explained that traditional television is here to stay thanks to older viewers. Programs such as “The Golden Bachelor” with participants over 60 or shows such as “Dancing with the Stars”, “Wheel of Fortune” (Roulette) and “Jeopardy!”, which have been broadcast for decades, are primarily aimed at this audience. And perhaps that is also the reason for the increasing revival of series from years ago and franchises such as Chicago, FBI or Law and Order.
In the article, an experienced manager who has worked at several networks explains that this is a generation that grew up in a world oriented towards television programming and that maintains these customs. They also explained that a decade ago, the average age of followers of the most-watched shows in the United States was between about 45 and 55 years old. However, in the 2022-2023 season, the average viewer was over 60 years old. For example, the audience for “Grey’s Anatomy” on ABC averaged 64.1 years old, and that of “Young Sheldon” was over 65 years old. The average age of viewers of the same series on platforms is much lower, with a difference of even 20 or 25 years. The problem is less the content and more the medium.
And in Spain? Kantar Media, the company that measures viewership in Spain, doesn’t just know how many people watch TV, watch a channel or a program. It also measures some demographic characteristics of this target group, such as their age. Looking at this data, the picture is clear: between the 2012-2013 and 2022-2023 seasons, the average age of the linear television audience in Spain increased from 48 to 57 years. So far this season through October 31, the average age of traditional television viewers is 58. That is, in just over a decade, the audience of linear television broadcast at a given time on a given channel has aged by 10 years.
The reasons are varied. The group of people over 65 is the one that consumes by far the most minutes of television per day and has switched the least to platforms and other devices that do not measure these target groups. For example, if someone watches “Big Brother” on the computer, their viewing is not included in this data. Kantar only offers viewership data for linear television and on television, not on other devices.
It must also be taken into account that population aging is a generalized phenomenon. Data from Eurostat, the European statistical office, shows this increase in the average age of Spaniards. Taking the same years as above as a reference, the average age of Spaniards in 2012 was 40.8 years. In 2022, the average was 45.1 years. We are one of the European countries that have aged the fastest. While in 2012 we were below the European Union average age (41.9 years), in 2022 we will already be above the European average (44.4 years). In fact, the average age of Spaniards has increased by more than four years in the last decade. However, the increase in the average age of television viewers has been higher over the same period.
Which chain has grown the most on average over the last decade? Of the three main Spanish free-to-air channels, La 1, Antena 3 and Telecinco, the public broadcaster is the one that launched in the 2012-2013 season with an older audience, with an average age of 55 years. Their average age so far this season is 61. Telecinco started the 2012-2013 season with an average age of 53 years, in the current one it is 59 years. That is, both La 1 and Telecinco have seen the average age of their viewers increase by six years since 2012-2013. But the Antena 3 case is causing a stir: the broadcaster Atresmedia started with a younger audience, which was on average 50 years old in the 2012-2013 season. However, the audience has aged by 12 years since then and now averages 62 years. Over the last decade, Antena 3 has gone from being the channel with the youngest audience of the three main Spanish free TV channels to being the channel with the oldest audience.
Another curious fact was the evolution of viewing age for certain programs over the last decade. To do this, we look at the data from “The Roulette of Luck”, “El hormiguero” and also the 9:00 p.m. news programs from the three major broadcasters. Roulette began with a much older audience, averaging 59 years old during the 2012-2023 season. Their age has increased by five years this decade to an average of 64 years. The rise that El Hormiguero experienced was more noticeable. In the 2012–2013 season, Pablo Motos’ program had an audience with an average age of 44 years. In the 2022-2023 season (and so far this year), this average age has increased to 56 years.
The noticeable aging of Antena 3’s audience continues in the nightly news broadcasts. In the 2012–2013 season, the audience of the news program, then hosted by Matías Prats, was 52 years old on average. In the current season, the news program anchored by Vicente Vallés has an average audience of 61 years. Curiously, the age of the audience watching Telecinco’s nightly newscast has barely changed: in the 2012-2013 season it averaged 56 years old and in the current season it is 58 years old (in some seasons it even reached 59 years old). Average). . Although its share has fallen, it has managed to retain a younger audience. There wasn’t such a significant change at La 1 News either: the average age of viewers has risen from 57 to 61 years.
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