LOGO: The Money's In The Gaybies

Cable network LOGO has issued a press release touting what it calls a "striking shift" in gay demographics. According to LOGO, most young gays now want to live in the suburbs and raise kids. The full release:

LOGO RESEARCH REVEALS STRIKING SHIFT IN GAY DEMOGRAPHIC

NEW YORK, NY – August 5, 2008 – Logo, a division of Viacom Inc.’s (NYSE: VIA and VIA.B) MTV Networks, today revealed groundbreaking research developed in partnership with Simmons and TRU, that shows a vast generational shift among LGBT people. Findings from the months-long national project conducted earlier this year indicate a greater expectation by LGBT people to lead an integrated life raising families in suburbs or small towns, ultimately living life the way they choose while maintaining their identity and sense of community.

Among the key findings of the national qualitative and quantitative research:

· A vast majority (79 percent) of gay people think it’s important to integrate into the greater culture and 64 percent are open about their sexual orientation to at least their family members.
· Less than half of gay people want to live in the city and a majority want to live in suburbia or small-town America. Regardless of where they want to live, 58 percent want to live closer to other gay people.
· Two-thirds of younger gay people expect to be partnered with kids at some point in their adulthood, while less than a third of gays 35 and older expect the same.
· Younger gay people have an even mix of gay and straight friends.
· Overall, gay people rank marriage equality as the number one issue about which they’re passionate, followed by the environment, health care and the economy.

“We’re trading in West Hollywood for West Texas and big disposable incomes for disposable diapers,” said Lisa Sherman, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Logo. “Most important, we’re integrating without abandoning our community or sense of identity. These developments are good for LGBT people and good for America.”

The research also found that despite gay people’s love for mainstream media, they want entertainment that speaks to their uniquely gay lives and experiences. This finding supports Logo’s efforts to develop programming like the recent Sordid Lives: The Series that tell authentic LGBT stories, sometimes with many LGBT characters and sometimes only a few.

Logo’s research was concluded earlier this year and involved a qualitative study in partnership with TRU Research of 21-45 year olds in New York and Dallas as well as a qualitative national survey in partnership with Simmons of 1,800 21-59 LGBT people.

Trading disposable income for disposable diapers? I don't know how that's inherently good for gay culture. Unless, of course, you feel that a wholesale aping of the white picket fence lifestyle is, by definition, good. It's fine for the folks that want it, and the fact that gay folks who want a subdivision life now feel more comfortable pursuing it, yeah that is good. But it's merely a different life, not a better one.

My buddy Rod Townsend, the Manhattan Offender, notes:

LOGO, the CBS for gays, released a press release today addressing research that essentially shows a younger generation of gays that don't really see a need for LOGO. Granted, the data is parsed in an intriguing way to prove the network's need to exist, but when a company pays out to a research company to create such data, they often receive back information tailored to make the company return to that research company again. By needing to study their demographics though, LOGO is really telling us, "We have no inherent feel for our viewer, but some dude with an MBA in the marketing department thinks this might help."

With gay nightlife shuttering nationwide and gaybies on every block, you really have to wonder what this life is going to look like in ten years. I guess LOGO better cut back on the Queer As Folk reruns and start booking gay versions of Leave It To Beaver.