“The most important target group is watching RTL.” This sentence could recently be read above the statistics graph in a Sunday newspaper on television use. And meant again the group of fourteen to forty-nine year olds. Now we could be a little offended because we - at 61 and 64 - are supposedly no longer important. But one could also question the statement critically. And wonder why this view of the supposedly promotional group of fourteen to forty-nine year olds is apparently irrevocable. In fact, it is discriminatory. And not justifiable in the matter.

First: those over fifty are important because there are so many.

The proportion of people over fifty years old in Germany is already more than 44 percent, and the trend is rising.

And 44 percent of around 83 million is a number that nobody and the advertising industry cannot turn a blind eye to.

And just for the future: According to all forecasts, every third German will belong to the sixty plus generation by 2050.

So with the importance of a group it may not be that easy after all.

Fit, affluent and cosmopolitan: the new over 60s

Second: we have something in our pockets. The most affluent group in Germany is the group of people over sixty years old. The children are usually out of the house, the apartment or their own home are paid off, the car is still in good shape, if not, there is a new one, maybe an electric vehicle. According to all studies, this generation is also fitter than its peers thirty or fifty years ago. Incidentally, she embodies the “travel world champion Germany”. She has time to spend.

A study by the demographer Tobias Vogt from the Max Planck Institute on the purchasing power of age groups shows that consumption is not growing as rapidly in any age segment as among senior citizens.

Almost every third euro spent now comes from them.

Within two decades (1993 to 2013), consumer spending by those over sixty rose from 192.2 to 375.3 billion euros annually and has thus almost doubled.

In the meantime they should be even higher.

Actually, one could very quickly come to the conclusion that the “advertising-relevant target group fourteen to forty-nine” cannot exist, at least that it is not the “most important target group” of television broadcasters.

Advertisers in conflict

While sixteen-year-olds can preheat cheaply at home and then order the coke with two straws with their friends in the disco, forty-nine-year-olds have almost reached the highest tariff group and bring good money home. And like the pecuniary situation, the preferences of the group members are likely to be completely different.