The Audience of ACL

By Treyci Bautista

The Austin City Limits television show focused primarily on Austin and Texas artists in its first years, with some exceptions. At the time, the music scene was progressive country. Over time it began to dissipate, fragment and change along with the change in the audience and their musical tastes.

Ed Bailey, ACL vice president of brand development, notes that there are no real demographic figures for the show. The best figures that he has available indicate that the show comes up with show that ACL reaches nearly three times as many viewers as VH1, that its audience is relatively affluent, with a median household income of $115,100, that that the average age of viewers is 43, and that the overwhelmingly majority – 93 percent, have attended college.

But those figures, he notes, are not rock-solid: ACL does not pay for market studies, such as the Nielson for television viewers. What ACL does know, however, is that its audience is younger than those numbers indicate, evidenced by blogs, testimonials and anecdotes.

In the early days, the audience wore cowboy hats and boots, and they listened to Willie Nelson and other country music artists. When he started in the third season, ACL Producer Terry Lickona Tom Waits. The show also booked the Neville Brothers, a funk/soul band from New Orleans and a variety of other music that didn't quite fit the mold from the first couple of years. Over the years, as the music has changed, the show has evolved, in terms of the audience. Lickona notes that he can't book the same performers from 32 years ago because popular music has changed dramatically since then, Lickona said. A performer from that long ago might not bring in the younger population.

"The show would have never survived if we didn't try to keep up with the changing landscape and the change in peoples' taste," Lickona said. "It did upset some people who thought that we were moving too far, too fast, but in the long run, I think, in looking back in hindsight, it was the right thing to do at the time."

Right now, the show is working on its third generation of artists as well as fans of the show. It's tricky trying to keep a balance because they don't want to alienate the people who have been fans of the show for years and years, but at the same time they want to open the doors to new fans, people who may or may not be that familiar with the show.

"In order for anything to survive, especially for a television show that's all about popular music, you've got to be able to be relevant, so we try to appeal to a cross-section of demographic of people of different ages and musical tastes, backgrounds, etcetera," Lickona said.

There are still some genres that are not explored, but "there are no limits to Austin City Limits," Lickona said.

Austin City Limits featured its very first reggae show with Damien Marley on the show this past season. The show had tried to get some other reggae acts before then but some didn't come through for one reason or another. Marley mainly appeals to a younger, more urban audience sporting dreadlocks with a Rasta Jamaican flag hat sitting on top of their heads, the colors red, black green and yellow spiraling around the hat. That audience is widely associated with marijuana.

"I would really like to do a show, and I think this might be the year, for us to do some kind of urban, hip-hop show," Lickona said. "We have had some elements of hip-hop in some of the music in recent years, but nothing that was really pure, straight-ahead hip-hop music, per se."

If hip-hop and rap acts were to ever conform on Austin City Limits, the younger, urban population would have a greater attendance at these shows. Females with their hair and nails done would sing along to the music with the young males who wear unbent New Era hats, a matching "tall tee" (an oversized T-shirt) and a matching pair of Nike Air Force 1s. Together they would do the dance associated with the song being performed.

The show has also in the past couple of years featured Latin music, which was never a focus for the show in the past, starting with accordionist Flaco Jimenez back in the first year. This Tejano music legend brings in a much older audience, but appeals to the younger Tejano audience as well.

Terry Lickona on ACL's audience