Television viewers getting older

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on August 18th, 2010

And by that, we mean that the average age of the Big Four television networks is getting higher.

The Hollywood Reporter delivers the news. Is it bad news? We suppose it depends on how you deal with it. Kinda like aging itself.

…ABC’s median viewership aged one year last season — to 51. CBS also grew a year, to 55. NBC gained two years, to 49. And Fox stayed the same, a relatively nubile 44.

Compare this to a decade ago. ABC was 43, CBS was 52, NBC was 45 and Fox was only 35.

So… it looks like the folks who were watching ten years ago… and who were older then… have continued to watch. But fewer youngsters have adopted the TV viewing habit. And TV is having a devil of a time competing for eyeballs and attention against such newfangled technology as the internet and video games.

The report, cobbled together from Nielsen data, also says that:

Comedies tend to be the youngest-skewing shows. In the fall of 1999, there were 45 broadcast sitcoms. Last fall there were just 20.

Conversely, procedural dramas are among the oldest-skewing genres. A decade ago, there were only five. Last fall there were 20.

So, television’s way of dealing with the death spiral is… to throw their lot in with people who are between the ages of 45 and dead. Run away from the youngest-skewing shows (and nod sagely when the TV critics declare the sitcom genre dead) and heap on more CSI‘s, NCI’s and Law & Orders. Oh… and develop programs that don’t do well in syndication… and minimize the chance of a scoring big with a Seinfeld or a Cosby.

Has Big TV become an offshoot of the Hemlock Society? Their swan dive into demographic death is quite something to behold. Maybe it’s several layers of entrenched executives who are loath to learn new methods and/or adapt to the new landscape. There’s a similar phenomenon going on in publishing. Entrenched publishing execs are, much to the consternation to the younger folks in the layers beneath them, determined to hold fast to the old business model. The theory is that they’ll resist change, continue to draw their salaries, get what they can out of the business, knowing full well that it’s circling the drain. The up-and-comers are tearing their hair out and wondering if there will be anything left for them to salvage.

And, like we’ve been saying for eleven years or so: It’s strange that there aren’t more sitcoms. Most sitcoms stars are men and women in their late 30s/early 40s. You’d think the networks would be attracted to a genre that had funny, appealing stars that are right down the demographic middle– between the youngsters and the seniors.

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