Join us Sept. 24 in NYC to connect with execs from Digitas, Claire's, Marriott, Havas and others
As marketers obsess with reaching young people, a rash of digital publications from Vice to BuzzFeed have sprung up to deliver them. Twenty-something readers may over-index with younger-themed media outlets, but they’re not rejecting the publications of their parents’ generation, either.
Consider: Fully 38.5 percent of The New York Times’ digital audience is 18-34, despite (because of?) their regular eviscerating trend pieces on them — up from 32.5 percent two years ago. Time.com is even more callow, at 41.5 percent. (All figures are comScore multiplatform.) Even Reader’s Digest, which for many represents their grandparents’ magazine, is one-third young adult — slightly higher than the internet population, and higher even than Vox.com, whose Gen Y readership is 32.6 percent.
“These sites are more popular than one might expect,” said Melanie Shreffler, who studies Gen Y as senior insights director for The Cassandra Report. “Just because they’re ‘old school’ or ‘traditional’ in terms of format and tone doesn’t mean they’re irrelevant to millennials.”
From a targeting and editorial planning perspective, it makes things simpler to put people in boxes. But with a cohort that spans 16 years (18 to 34) and is nearly 80 million strong, it doesn’t make sense to treat young adults like they’re a single, monolithic group.
Of course, most youth-focused publications have a higher concentration and number of young readers. BuzzFeed, for instance, has 48.5 million, or 60 percent of its readers, who are 18-34.
But established publications often reach more people in that demographic by virtue of their total audience size. Young adults make up 35 percent of CNN’s audience, or 32.4 million. That’s twice the number reached by Vice. NPR and People, similarly, reach far more people 18-34 than Gawker and Mashable in sheer numbers.
More in Media
Nearly all luxury resale transactions on TikTok Shop US now come from livestreams
Year-to-date, 94% of revenue on TikTok Shop from luxury resale in the U.S. is coming from livestreaming, the platform revealed last week.
Media Briefing: Overheard at the Digiday Publishing Summit, Sept. ‘26 ‘Google Zero’ edition
Publishers debate zero-click search, AI licensing contracts and AI visibility at the Digiday Publishing Summit town hall.
‘It’s hard to be a $7 billion company’: The investment banker’s diagnosis for ad tech’s public woes
Public ad tech is disappearing and an investment banker just explained why.