TVB, the not-for-profit trade association of America’s commercial broadcast television industry, released findings of an analysis indicating that local early- and late-news audiences in the top-10 measured U.S. markets more closely match the composition of America’s voters than that of primetime viewers of national cable news networks (CNN, CNBC, FOXNC, HLN and MSNBC).
Based on TVB’s analysis of Nielsen Media Research data in May 2012 (4/26/12 – 5/23/12) and U.S. Census data from the last presidential election, only 19% of voters are Americans over the age of 65, a demographic that makes up half (50%) of the primetime cable news audience. The largest group of voters fall between the ages of 35 and 54 (39%), a demographic that is under-represented by primetime cable news (22%). In contrast, the audience composition of local early and late news in the top-10 U.S. measured markets more closely mirrored America’s voters with 32% of its viewership coming from the core voter demographic of 35-54.
Furthermore, within the TV markets of the key battleground states, local broadcast news delivered 28% of the 35-54 voting demo, reinforcing the importance of local broadcast news to political advertisers this election cycle.
The full report is available on the TVB website here: http://www.tvb.org/local_news_reaches_voters