Chasing The 25-54 Demo: Pointless?

TV Week columnist Marianne Paskowski writes a memo to CNN/U.S. president Jon Klein:

“…If you think you’re going to get younger (or so-called more desirable) demographics with Anderson Cooper” in the NewsNight time slot, “forget it. I don’t know how old you are, Mr. Klein, but when I was a youngster still living at home, I could not care less about the 10 p.m. news.

That’s because I was out partying with my pals and had no mortgage to pay or world issues to fret about. In contrast, my parents, who supported me, were glued to TV news each and every evening. They seemed to get some comfort out of it all. To me, watching news was punishment, and I watched it only when I was grounded.

Face it, news is never going to attract the younger demographic. Madison Avenue knows that. Why else would all those commercials for Maalox and Gas-X-products which I never knew existed in my carefree youth-run in news programs? Heck, even today I spend more time online than I do with my television set, and I am not a member of Gen Y…”

Here’s the rest…

> Update: 12:11pm: An e-mailer responds: “This column by Marianne Paskowski is the silliest thing I’ve ever seen. ‘Younger’ in TV news — and you’d think a TV Week columnist would know this (and could learn Jon Klein’s age by this new-fangled thing kids call googling) — isn’t 17. Unless I’m reading this wrong and she was still living at home at 42…”