Globally Rational

I saw an article today suggesting that, for the first time, the average TV viewer is now over 50 years old. I think it’s interesting to note that top TV characters, on the other hand, seem to be getting younger as time progresses. If you look at the progression from “I Love Lucy” to “The Brady Bunch” to “Cheers” to “Friends”, it seems obvious that the most popular comedy-type shows feature younger and younger characters.

Here are some of the top comedy shows of the 20th century, along with the ages of the main characters during the show’s first season. I chose all of the comedy shows that have at some point been the #1 show in America by ratings, not including shows about families or kids (if I didn’t have enough examples for any particular decade, I threw in some shows that may never have been #1 but are still really good):

1950’s: “I Love Lucy” (main actors were in their 40’s)
1960’s: “The Andy Griffith Show” (Andy was 35-45), “Gunsmoke” (main character was 35-40), “Bewitched” (the husband was 35-40)
1970’s: “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” (Mary was mid-30’s), “Laverne and Shirley” (They were both mid-30’s), “Three’s Company” (mid-30’s)
1980’s: “Cheers” (Sam was mid-30’s), “Who’s the Boss” (Tony was mid-30’s)
1990’s: “Seinfeld” (Jerry was mid-30’s), “Friends” (they were all mid/late-20’s)
2000’s: “Scrubs” (JD was mid-20’s), “Chuck” (mid-20’s)… sorry, these are the best two I could come up with for the 2000’s because the rest of the good shows all feature a wide range of ages (marketing people are starting to figure out how to target a broad demographic).

You’ll notice a similar trend if you look at medical shows (Marcus Welby M.D. was over 60, Quincy M.E. was 50something, while House M.D. is 40something and his assistants are mid-20’s), legal shows (i.e. “Matlock” vs. the cast of “Boston Legal”), or any other specific genre. And look at the people who have sold the most music albums by decade:

1950’s: Harry Belafonte, Henry Mancini, some movie soundtracks
1960’s: Mostly soundtracks, the Monkees, Jimi Hendrix, Iron Butterfly
1970’s: Simon and Garfunkel, Neil Young, Elton John, Led Zeppelin, others of similar age
1980’s: AC/DC, Aerosmith, Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, others of similar age
1990’s: Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, Tupac, others of similar age
2000’s: Linkin Park, Usher, Eminiem, others of similar age

They are all around 25-30 years old at their peaks. So it seems like we like our TV characters to get younger, but our taste for musicians’ ages aren’t really changing. That means that it’s not just the aging population that is being reminiscent of younger days; the real cause is something else…

That “something else”, in my opinion, is the evolution of the field of marketing. Here are the reasons why I think that the marketing applies to TV characters more than to musicians:

–TV networks have a limited number of programs that they can show in any 24-hour period (music labels, meanwhile, can produce as many albums as they want). So, the TV studios have to make sure to appeal to as many people as possible with each show, while record labels can make different albums for each demographic.
–Garage bands can still “come from nothing” by just making good music with no regard to marketing. TV shows, on the other hand, are produced in a boardroom.
–Each TV show has to appeal to a wide demographic in order to look juicier to advertisers.
–People tend to just turn on the TV and watch whatever is most appealing. When they buy music, it’s much more premeditated.

People are getting better at selling things to us. Honestly, I like the product… I love watching many of today’s TV shows. Still, I won’t deny that most of those shows have lost the soul that broadcast television once had. If Andy Griffith (or even Jerry Seinfeld) tried to turn his comedy into a TV show today, the networks would laugh at him.

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