Television is starting to look beyond the 18- to 49-year-old demographic

For the last 20 years, the television industry has been all about young-adult demographic groups, or "demos" in the slang of Madison Avenue, because marketers have believed that young people are most likely to develop lifelong loyalties to certain brands. Thus, whichever network attracts the most adults under 50 has been considered the winner, commanding premium rates for commercial time. As a result, network executives have driven themselves to distraction chasing young people, struggling to find programs with appeal for viewers in their 20s and 30s. Yet there are growing signs that network TV is moving away from its relentless focus on demos -- and that could have a huge influence on future programming. There's a growing sense in the industry that the 18-to-49 category's importance to marketers may be wildly overblown. Moreover, in an age of DVRs, multichannel systems and increasingly tiny ratings, the demo obsession may itself be pushing down ratings, exacerbating the industry's problems and excluding from consideration too many programs that could have broad appeal. Meanwhile, a new research company called TRA Inc. has the potential to revolutionize audience measurement with a system that attempts to analyze how viewers -- including those 50 and over -- spend their money, rather than just tally what they watch. That could enable marketers to target audiences with much more precision than in the past, network executives and media buyers say, and reveal previously unrecognized purchasing habits across all age groups.