We all prefer the big, simple idea. But when it comes to audience demographics the world is getting much more complicated.

There were 2 charts that caught my eye around demographic planning for campaigns: 1) TV is a House divided between older and younger Americans; and 2) the other divide is between Cord and cutting the cord households. 

The TV generation gap is wide. Even though the average consumption rate is nearly 5 hours, there is wide gap between 18-34 (2:17) and 50-64 (6:11). To reach an 18-34 year old on regular TV is going to take massive frequency and would be much more efficient using a digital medium.

The second chart shows why people are NOT cutting cable cord. More than 70% of households have not cut the cable/satellite cord–and have no plans to drop it for the reasons in the chart.

So for now, the traditional pay-tv subscription TV is holding steady, but know if a few more House of Cards programs hit on steaming TV and a few sports events start to gravitate to streaming platforms, the cords may become severed at a very fast rate.