1. 30% of YouTube visitors are over 45 years old.  
2. There are more Republicans than Democrats online.
3. Youth voting in this last election was the highest in 20 years.

The answers: all true, according to articles appearing in our browser in the past few days.

YouTube’s demographics have been going more “mainstream” as a function of their tremendous growth. First adopted among young people, it has become more accepted and enjoyed by us older folk. So says Hitwise.com:

http://weblogs.hitwise.com/bill-tancer/2006/10/of_youtube_web_20_and_early_ad.html

Not only does Nielsen/NetRatings announce that 36.6 percent of U.S. adults online are Republicans, 30.8 percent are Democrats and 17.3 percent are Independents, they also measure the concentration of Republicans and Democrats in the top online channels. (Did you see that MoveOn.org isn’t among the top five Democratic sites? Look for a petition drive by MoveOn any minute!) Read the entire release at:
http://marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=178875

Here is a table of their Top 5 Sites among Republicans and Democrats (U.S., 18+ Online Population)

Source: Nielsen//NetRatings @Plan, Fall 2006 Release

Youth turnout highest in at least 20 years

“This is an extraordinary turnout for young voters,” said CIRCLE Director Peter Levine. “In a year of rising turnout, young people led the way—repeating the pattern that we saw in 2004. Nationwide, in House races, 61% of young people voted for Democratic candidates— the highest proportion for any age group.” 

Since some 22 of the Democratic victories were less than two percent margins, this may well have been the primary reason for the change in political power.  The 10 million youth voting accounted for 13% of all votes cast, about even with 1994. Read more about engaged youth at:
http://www.civicyouth.org/

Note to political activists – this group is growing, and they aren’t likely to become engaged through their parents’ channels of direct mail and telemarketing.

November 2006