Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSLO) confirmed for the first time that it is planning a magazine for older Boomer women, but said the launch is on hold due to the slow economy.  No timeline for launching the new magazine has been announced. The news surfaced in Women’s Wear Daily, which reports that the magazine’s working title is “M.” Earlier reports on this can be found here.

CBS Corp. President and CEO Les Moonves blames evening news anchor Katie Couric’s rating decline on men over 55, who refuse to accept a female anchor. But he still likes older viewers overall as the lynchpin demographic in his network’s strategy. Mediaweek reports on Moonves’ comments at McGraw Hill Companies’ Media Summit in New York last week:

“In response to a question about CBS being the oldest skewing network in prime time, Moonves said the network has been able to do very well bringing in advertisers who want to reach older viewers from the Baby Boomer generation, and he took a swipe at the other Big Three Networks, who he said, believe “people past [the age of] 54 don’t count.”

“This is a system we’ve been trying to change,” he said. “We think it’s unfair. We think the Baby Boomer is still where the [spending] money is.” And in a message to those who believe that younger viewers have more disposable income to spend, he described that 18-34 demographic touted by the other networks as a “bullshit demographic.”

Moonves also noted that evening news shows still bring in 21 million viewers nightly, despite all the fragmentation going on in media.

TV Week magazine ran a special report this month foced on the growing momentum in media and advertising targeting 50+ audiences. Along with the usual flotsam about affluent boomers and their supposed obsession with 1960s sitcom reruns (e.g.  TV Land cable), the report contained these interesting nuggets:

• Retirement Living TV surfaced as the “most-wanted” network that cable systems want to add to their lineups in a recent survey. The channel was named as the top “get” for networks passing 1 million to 40 million homes by 43% of respondents.
• A senior media buyer at agency Media Contacts claims that the old bias toward the 18-34 demographic is dying off:

“The old story of all advertisers wanting to focus on the 18 to 49 demographic is fading, because the boomer audience is continuing to grow and they control a tremendous amount of spending,” said Adam Kasper, senior VP and director of digital media at Media Contacts, a division of media agency Havas. “Advertisers are lagging behind a little, but they are starting to realize there is money here.”

The report also notes growing advertiser interest in targeting Boomers and seniors via online video campaigns.

Paid subscription and pay-per-view video have a bright future–and both will be driven by Boomer consumers, according to Saul Berman, who heads IBM’s global media and entertainment strategy practice. In this interview with Beet.TV at the recent AlwaysOn conference in New York , Berman talked about the broad trends IBM sees comin down the road in the ongoing advertising and content revolution.

JWT Boom and C&R Research released high-level findings from its latest round of research in the Boomer Heartbeat series. C&R’s BoomerEyes unit, led by Anne Wall, does some of the best work around on the 50+ market. The new research focuses in on the leading edge Boomers, age 60-64, in three specific areas of life:

• The empty nest
• The role of technology
• The role of employment and the workplace

I didn’t find anything too surprising in the findings, to wit:

• Empty nesters might be a little sad about kids leaving the house, but for the most part are enjoying their new freedoms
• Boomers have always embraced new technology, and are using just about every form of it as they age.
• Work remains important to Boomers, and many are working “in retirement.”

Television networks are slowly waking up to the importance of grown-up viewers as their audiences fragment and decline. They’re affluent and more loyal to legacy media…or so they thought. Turns out adults are getting tougher to reach through traditional channels according to a Multichannel News report. Citing research from Wolf Resource Group, the article notes that adults 25 to 54 spend more time online than do younger demos–even though the kids are thought of as the Internet generation. Other highlights:

• 42 percent of YouTube’s audience is 35 to 54
• 30 percent of Boomers participate in user-generated content–although just 10 percent create content themselves
• Adults age 35 to 49 are the biggest users of digital video recorders–31 percent use them at least once a week, compared with just 26 percent among 18 to 34-year-olds.

Marketers will miss out if they rely only on traditional legacy media to reach lucrative Boomer audiences–especially as younger Boomers edge into the 50+ category.