Offspring delivers for Ten in new 25-54 target audience
The second outing of Ten’s drama Offspring last night faded slightly on its season debut, but was third biggest for the night in Ten’s new target advertising demographic of 25-54 year olds.
The former youth network signalled on Tuesday that it was now targeting “young at heart” 25 to 54-year-olds after shifting from 16-39 to 18-49 to recognise the move away from traditional TV watching in the younger audience.
Offspring was 12th for the night in all people, according to overnight metro ratings from OzTAM, with an audience of 798,000, just down on last week’s 868,000.
The 25-54 age group is also Nine’s preferred demographic, while Seven still focuses on all people.
Ten couldn’t be too pleased with this result. 900k to 1 million viewers is still the benchmark for these dramas. They should be nervous about the second series of Puberty Blues. Still the reality is that Australian drama is the best bet for a balanced slate in this demographic. But is Ten prepared to spend the money required? It is pretty sad when you consider the glory days of Ten’s drama back in the 1980s which was all about quality, topical drama that a wide demographic flocked to. Perhaps Ten needs to listen less to demographers and more to just good, well executed ideas.
Finally TEN has woken up to itself and is targeting a keenly sought after demo by advertisers. It will be competitive for them. But at least they have now removed their heads from the sand and have realised that under 30’s are securing their entertainment when and wherever they want to across a variety of devices.
All TEN needs now is engaging content. That’s where the challenge will be. Lets wait & see.
Raising the target audience age makes sense. in my case, I’m 61 and I love Offspring. But unlike Harry and Dave I think that the series is very good. The writers managed to mantain a good balance between comedy and drama. in addition, Offspring dares to go where other dramas don’t and the story lines are much closer to real life. I do think, however, that channel 10 is not making a good job in the promotion of the series. By trying too hard they are actually alienating part of the audience. Channel 10 adds a lot of drama to the promos, with the effect that they imply a different story line than the one in the episode. I think that if they aim to attract an older audience they should avoid that.
And just in case there is any doubt, I’m much more a ABC and SBS viewer and very selective about what I watch.