Sought-after males find TV a turn-off

By IRENE CHAPPLE

The cost of advertising to young males on mainstream television has increased sharply as marketers face rising prices for slots which are attracting lower audiences in the lucrative demographic.

Figures from ACNielsen show a significant drop in viewers aged 15 to 24 in the past few years.

Last year viewers in the age group dropped to just over 20 per cent of total ratings during prime time, a drop of around 16 per cent from the average recorded for that time during the past eight years.

That comes in the same year television stations hiked prices by about 15 per cent as advertising demand grew.

The value for advertisers is thus being squeezed from both directions.

Kath Watson, DDB's managing partner, media, said the cost impact could be minimised by being more selective and innovative when buying.

She said television was the best way for reaching a mass audience and still provided good value.

The 15-to-24-year-old market is becoming increasingly difficult for advertisers to reach, with young men leading the viewing exodus and women not far behind.

Marketers, who direct a substantial amount of their advertising towards the younger market, are being forced to try new approaches.


TV3's sister channel C4 is now scooping up many of the disaffected young watchers from the mainstream channels.

C4 is running six minutes of advertising every hour, considerably less than the 12-to-13-minute industry norm.

TV3 marketing and communications director Roger Beaumont said the company as a whole had not lost viewers because it had gained through C4.

The advertising breaks on C4 - which cost, at ratecard value, $600 for a 30-second slot at peak time compared with $5900 for TV3 - were "about right for commercial demand", said Beaumont.

TVNZ head of Sales Lauren James said the decline in the 15-to-24 demographic was a concern but that the market was being fragmented and was not moving to any one destination.

She said television "is still the most cost-effective and powerful mechanism to reach them at a critical mass level".

TVNZ also had to be careful not to concentrate on that audience at the expense of others, given its wider obligations as a public broadcaster.

David Laterveer, client service manager of media agency Carat, said the trend was mirrored in other countries such as the United States and Australia.

He believed much of the phenomenon could be blamed on the onset of alternative entertainment options.

The rise of Sky television had also had an impact.

"It seems to be that our youth are spending more time on the internet, watching DVDs, going to the cinema, playing video games and sending text messages on their mobiles ... and it's all at the expense of television."

Laterveer said the current crop of television programmes - such as The Bachelor, Bachelorette, Average Joe and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy - were also targeting women and older viewers.

He said the viewer decrease combined with rising television rates had "substantially increased advertising costs to those marketing to youth audiences".

However, Peter Myles, media director at advertising agency Colenso, is not convinced that the decline in audience numbers lessens the impact of advertising.

He said the number of times an advertisement was seen was not a significant factor in making it work.