Current Events > A short essay I wrote about aging TV demographics posted in honor of Betty White

(+) Yeah! (+)

I wrote this essay a while back after seeing a really good post about the Golden Girls. I had just finished watching Boston Legal, which had Betty White on as a recurring character, and the penultimate episode involved a lot of discussion about television demographics, especially about older ones who devoted more of their undivided attention to the screen and had more capital to drive sales but who are woefully passed over in favour of the younger demographics.

I get that this is self indulgent, but I didn't want to gunk up the other memorial threads. Take it or leave it, I made this thread so it would be out of the way.

"Having just shared that post about the Golden Girls, Im tempted to talk about the shifting demographic of television. Because you dont have shows like The Golden Girls any more - you dont have shows that appeal to a 50+ audience with 50+ leads, unless those leads maintain some standard of beauty that bring in the younger demographics.

David E. Kelley knows this all too well. The penultimate episode of Boston Legal had one of the characters outright breaking the fourth wall to say that it was the only show on TV to have lead characters older than 50. A show he made a few years later, Harrys Law, starred Kathy Bates and got good ratings - but the demographic skewed too old for NBCs liking, so they cancelled it after two seasons.

I think about shows like The Golden Girls, or Murphy Brown, or even Family Ties with both its cast of young go-getters and older folks. Shows which focused on the adult working life, or which had a clever take on the family unit without resorting to pulling stupid faces to the camera, or which occasionally focused on retirement as the main conceit of the show - four retired women, or women close to retirement, living out their days with each other. Shows like this are borderline unheard of today.

Shows that do feature older age as a genuine theme beyond the 2010s, like Harrys Law, get cancelled. Not for lack of ratings, but because they didnt court the right demographic. Even when it's a success, it's not the "right" kind of successful.

Demographics have also fucked over cartoons and kids programming on channels like Cartoon Network - a direct quote from said channel being girls dont buy toys in the early 2010s as an excuse to avoid producing shows that appealed to girls. Even if the shows get great ratings, even if the shows sell a lot of great ad space and are, for all intents and purposes, a success - it gets canned if its not the right demographic.

Another point brought up in that Boston Legal episode is that people over fifty tend to have the most time to watch television, more focus on the TV screen as opposed to multitasking between the screen and their devices, and more personal wealth to spend on whatevers being advertised. People over 50 are basically the best audience that TV has for their ends, which is to capture peoples attention and sell products.
But when a show resonates with that demographic and does well in the ratings? It gets cancelled for appealing to the wrong demographic.

So we probably wont get another Golden Girls in our lifetimes. We wont get a show focusing on the adult working life, or on the family unit that isnt a bunch of people mugging to the camera, or which features retirement or discusses it with any kind of dignity. TV isnt interested in appealing out of a narrow bracket of what it considers young, sexy and profitable."

Condolences to the estate of Betty White, as well as everybody who's particularly shaken or otherwise upset at the news. Betty White was a real one, appearing on international TV well into her 90's. Her efforts to de-segregate her TV show in the 50's against studio pressure was both brave and compassionate when the era was lacking in both in regards to civil rights and race, and the Golden Girls remains as groundbreaking and influential today as it always was.

She might have been beloved by us all, but above that, I want to emphasise that she was a pioneer to the end. If anything, the world of entertainment is poorer for rejecting the diversity of her career - when we get modern sitcoms starring aging comedians like Tim Allen's multiple attempts to make a TV comeback, it's a hackneyed, cliched mess where nobody's even trying. Even the Murphy Brown reboot was made out of cardboard and Sellotape compared to the strong writing and direction of the original show.

That's why I wanted to share this essay with CE. Boston Legal, as well as the plight of Harry's Law, is what put the thought into my head. But the Golden Girls was a perfect example of a show featuring a mature cast that covered mature themes like aging, retirement and sexuality in your later years. Funny, but dignified and earnest - something modern TV has lost in relation to the older demographics of television. You can see that when a show is made that courts an older demographic and appeals to them, to the point of being an objective success in both ratings and viewer engagement, which gets cancelled with prejudice after two seasons because it's not the demographic the network was looking for.

What a waste.

So as a whole, television, particularly broadcast TV is overwhelming watched by more elderly people. CW, skews the youngest, and it's average viewer age is still in the 60s. Which is crazy, since it has a reputation as a genre channel or a teen drama channel.

But if a channel for young people still attracts an older audience, it kinda reveals one big truth. You don't have to go out of your way to appeal to the elderly. They will almost watch by default. So if they exist as a relative constant, then you have to appeal to the variable, which is 18-49 year olds. This is undoubtedly unfortunate for 50+ population, but ultimately unavoidable. Networks exists to make money and it just isn't worth trying to court an audience, who you already have and aren't endanger of losing.