Women & TV: From Morning Talk Shows to Blog Buzz Flows?

This weekend an article appeared in both the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune quoting me on the topic of "Women Tuning Out Morning Newscasts."   This television season, the article notes, "has seen a significant erosion of the morning shows' demographic sweet spot: 25- to 54-year-old women."  I offered the following hypothesis to the reporter, Matea Gold, and I think there's excellent data to support this:

"The very issues that typically get covered on the morning shows are very robust and alive in the blogosphere. It's safe to say that the Internet is beginning to cannibalize a lot of these conversational topics."

While most media coverage tends to center on the "A-list" bloggers, women are powering so much of the growth of the blogosphere, and the topics they discuss mirror the "conversational" topics you often see on the morning shows, albeit with even greater intimacy. And videos, especially the ones that are easily embedded in blog entries, are further blurring the line between offline and online television, potentially elevating the challenge (and opportunity, if they play it right) for the TV networks.  (Recall my earlier post re the embedding of Dove Evolution content in tens of thousands of female blogs).  A key challenge for the networks is to figure out how to maximize cross-platform synergy between the online conversation and the offline content, and vice-versa.  Some experimentation appears to be underway in the cross-branding of iVillage and NBC morning show content, and my guess is that we'll see lots more experimentation along these lines. 

Of course there may be other factors.  Post-article commentary in the Huffington Post by Glynnis MacNicol points to a study by Nielsen Entertainment suggesting that of the 117 million active gamers in the U.S., 56 percent play games online, and sixty-four percent (64%) of those online gamers are female.  "Is it time for a morning show video game?" MacNicol asks. 

Maybe so!   I frankly wouldn't rule out anything.

Comments

[Meikah]

I agree that women are powering the blogosphere. So can you say that there more female bloggers than male?

[Will Waugh]

Pete

Any advertisers leveraging this insight well in your opinion?