By Reid Collins on 3.13.02 @ 12:02AM
Ted Koppel may no longer matter -- but the same shouldn't be said about the over-50 crowd that watches his show and does much else besides as it prepares to live longer and longer.
"Relevance" was the buzzword for the recent
Letterman-in-for-Koppel dust-up, Koppel and his cornermen insisting
that his "Nightline" broadcast on ABC has relevance, and to can it
in favor of a sit-down comic from CBS would be a disservice to the
public weal. Letterman's decision to remain at CBS aside, the
argument underscored the loony predicates that drive programming
decisions today. "Nightline" delivers a larger audience, but the
wrong kind, one which has become irrelevant in the United States.
To the advertiser, or more exactly, the agency that spends the
advertiser's money, Koppel is as irrelevant as a Chris Matthews
guest. "Nightline" delivers an audience 50 and older in abundance.
No less an expert than the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz declares
this to be an "aging audience that is dying off." (And he wonders
if network news and the aging newscasters who deliver it can long
endure.) Were that true -- the dying off part -- Social Security
would not be imperiled and health care for the growing demograph of
older people would not be the rising issue it has become.
But what Letterman has that "Nightline" hasn't is a younger if
smaller audience -- a slice of the 18-to-34 year-olds that are the
Holy Grail, or more improperly but accurately, Britney's navel ,
when it comes to the advertising dollar. It is axiomatic on Madison
Avenue that only the young spend money, or make the spending
decisions for those who have money. 'Twas ever thus. And the young,
runs a corollary, don't watch news.
During the Gulf War, the ratings of CNN soared (well, as much as
any cable ratings soar) and the question was asked (by me, who
worked there at the time) what are we doing to maintain this
advantage? The Oracles of Atlanta remained silent, the assumption
being that those who had come would stay. Besides, this new cohort
were those darn old folks, and isn't there something short of
euthanasia that would get rid of them or exchange them for the
young? A demographic bungee jump was tried at one point. Smack in
the middle of the morning schedule, CNN initiated a program titled
"Christy Brinkley in the Nineties." Had it been in her nighties it
might have worked, but jutting out in the sequence of news segments
it jarred the schedule without moving the ratings.
CNN is a niche into which certain pieces of information fit and
where certain tastes are met. And now there are several hundred
niches available to every place in America where there is cable
and/or satellite service. Our multi-culturism has been met by a
multiplicity of suppliers. How different from the days of the Big
Three Networks when the evening news was a national town meeting.
The network moguls -- the Paleys and Sarnoffs -- did this more for
pride than anything; for, contrary to what has been said, networks
are not licensed by government, only stations are, and there was no
federal compulsion to build the colossi that network news divisions
once were. The product, if skewed a trifle leftward, at least
produced a simulacrum of reality that the nation as a whole could
ponder and, when required, attain consensus.
No more. Now there is news to fit whatever taste in politics is
out there. And whatever taste in entertainment. You may watch
Letterman being careful or you may watch Dennis Miller and the "f"
word. You may watch Koppel in the Congo, or Leno in double
entendre. You can watch BET, the Black Entertainment Network, or
one of the many Spanish-language stations. There is something for
everyone. Some are saved, some salivate. But there is no national
town meeting anymore, perhaps because there is nothing relevant to
all of a nation of 280-million which has worshipped a multicultural
nihilism to the point that there is now a channel for each one
million.
But what if those who insist that older Americans are irrelevant
to advertisers are the same statisticians who told us days ago the
kids were drinking all that booze? The same folks who forget to
tell the Martian lander the difference between metric and U.S.
measurement? If the old folks are dying off in penury, why are
"empty nester" home sales booming at half a million and up? What if
some niche broadcaster decided to cater exclusively to those 50 and
older? News, music, and entertainment to match?
We may never know. It may be, after all, irrelevant. Or, as we
hear a lot nowadays, irrevelant.
topics:
Health Care, Social Security
