‘If I were honest about it, I feel quite well-represented in the media.’ (b) Ageing audiences There was agreement among the academics interviewed that traditional media audiences were ageing. However, there were differing opinions about the extent to which younger audiences were being ‘chased’ or targeted by the media. Those who believed that media outlets are focusing on a younger audience associated this with ageism. ‘I think media does project a certain ageism, because they are trying to garner support from younger audiences.’ Others reflected that digital technology had transformed the media landscape, and the use of web analytics to measure ‘success’ has meant that click rates dominate what content gets produced. Consequently, while traditional media may aspire to attract a younger audience, they may be forced to produce content that their existing older audience will click on. (c) Redundancies and loss of institutional knowledge There was greater consensus among interviewees on the issue of redundancies in the media, which was seen to disproportionately affect older workers, who were often considered too expensive and hence targeted for redundancy. Interviewees observed that the departure of experienced older workers has resulted in a young media workforce characterised by a lack of experience and expertise, as well as high turnover rates, where young workers are being replaced by even younger workers. ‘This is important because an increasingly youthful workforce is making content for an ever-ageing audience’ It was further noted that resource pressures in newsrooms, have created a tendency among journalists to default to easy contacts and sources for stories, such as politicians or experts. This has resulted in a lack of representation of older people’s lived experiences and simplistic generational narratives such as: ‘Baby Boomers are eating up all your resources and not leaving anything behind for you [and] you cannot get a house, [or] Millennials are all crying in the corner. These are the sort of overarching narratives…. all you see are [older people], completely decrepit [in an] aged care home…you will never see the 85-year-old healthy Italian sitting in the backyard doing his tomatoes and being happy about it.’ (d) Lack of understanding about the realities of ageing A number of the academics interviewed observed that mainstream Australian culture has not caught up with the reality of extended lifespans. ‘It is not 1940 [when] we were dying [at] 50 years old with a heart attack.’ However, it was noted that media depictions continue to present older people as either ‘superheros’ or as overly vulnerable and/or incapacitated. Examples referred to include depictions of older parents with dementia in the ABC TV dramas ‘Mother and Son’ and ‘Packed to the Rafters.’ Qualitative interviews 33