It's all a bunch of teens and tweens and maybe twenty-somethings uploading and downloading and forwarding YouTube all over, right? That's a "misconception" writes Jack Myers in his Media Buzz email newsletter today, quoting a still unreleased eMarketer study:

"Until now we've been operating under the misconception that YouTube's audience looks like Lonelygirl15. Just as the teen dream was unmasked as an actress performing in a scripted, if clever, work of fiction, eMarketer's just published study, Internet Video: Advertising Experiments and Exploding Content, reveals that 55 percent of YouTube's U.S. audience falls within the 35 to 64 age range, not exactly Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen. Even more surprising is that these viewers are affluent; 61.5 percent banked over $60,000 per annum. While this is bait for advertisers who are slowly shifting their ad dollars from broadcast to the Internet, it's bad news for television, which has seen this age demo running for the exits."

(Image from Communication at CDC)