Graying TV: Network viewers average age now 50

The trade publication Variety had an interesting story Sunday, noting that the average age of TV viewers watching the four broadcast networks -- not including those who use DVRs to time delay programs -- is 50.

That's the oldest age since New York TV analyst Steve Sternberg started keeping track about 10 years ago. It's older than the 18 to 49 target age preferred by the advertising industry. According to Variety's story, "CBS was oldest in live viewing this past season with a median age of 54. ABC clocked in at 50, followed by NBC (49), Fox (44), CW (34) and Univision (34)."

Among series, "at ABC, youngest series was "Supernanny" (with a median age of 41), while oldest was "Women's Murder Club" (57). At CBS, youngest was "How I Met Your Mother," "Kid Nation" and the Tuesday edition of "Big Brother," tied at 45; oldest was "60 Minutes" (60). NBC's youngest show was "Scrubs" (34), and oldest was "Monk" (58).

At Fox, the youngest shows were "American Dad" and "Family Guy" (29), while the oldest was "Canterbury's Law" (55). At CW, "One Tree Hill" was youngest (26), while "Life Is Wild" was oldest (45)."

Note that the oldest-skewing shows: "Women's Murder Club," "Life is Wild," "Canterbury's Law," and NBC's airings of "Monk" have all been discontinued. 

This echoes something I was telling my editor earlier today: The increasing divide between cable and broadcast TV viewers. I like to call it the Retail Store Theory of Television.

Especially in a year where the Hollywood writers' strike hobbled network TV, the big, free TV networks are starting to look like Wal-Mart -- packed with cheap, enticing goods that somehow aren't quite as good as you would expect.

Standard cable is a cut above -- the Target of the TV industry as it were -- with slightly better service and products for a price. More and more often, if you're looking for a quality scripted show, you're looking at AMC's "Mad Men" and "Breaking Bad," USA's "Burn Notice," "Monk" and "Psych," TNT's "The Closer" and "Saving Grace," or FX's "Rescue Me," "Damages" or "The Shield."

  Premium cable outlets such as HBO and Showtime are even headier -- the Nordstrom's and Dillards of the industry -- filled with the kind of groundbreaking and high quality series that connoisseurs of TV can appreciate. File "Weeds," "Californication," "Dexter," "John Adams," "In Treatment," "Entourage" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm" under this heading.

Once upon a time, we all shared the same TV experiences more or less, whether we lived in a mansion or a slum. I fear for the day when even the quality of TV content we receive is stratified by income, and even the big group experiences which once united our nation are ancient history. 

TiVo now: ABC Family's The Secret Life of the American Teenager

The Secret Life of the American Teenager, 8 p.m. Tuesday, ABC Family:

The biggest problem with most TV shows depicting modern teenagers is the voice of the kids.

Either they're too silly and independent, like most of the tween-size pablum filling the Disney Channel, or they sound like 40-year-olds trapped in teenage bodies, like the impossibly precocious youngsters studded throughout series such as The O.C., Gilmore Girls and One Tree Hill.

Which is why ABC Family's newest stab at a compelling family drama, the Secret Life of the American Teenager, is such a welcome surprise. Creator Brenda Hampton -- the mastermind behind one of the longest-running family dramas on TV, 7th Heaven -- has developed a layered look at a pregnant high schooler that feels fresh as the young stars filling its cast.

That's because only part of this show is about 15-year-old band geek Amy Jeurgens (a compelling Shailene Woodley) and her horrible mistake -- finding herself pregnant after one unsatisfying encounter with the school Lothario, Ricky Underwood. While Amy wrestles with when and how to tell her parents, Hampton moves on to excavate the many levels of life in the average American high school -- from the religiously devout football star whose hormones make living up to his ideals of abstinence nearly impossible, to ladies man Underwood, whose taste for proclivity seems rooted in childhood molestation and worse.

Less sarcastic than Juno and more grounded than anything on tween-focused Disney, Secret Life confronts the reality of sex and status in high school with a directness sure to make parents uncomfortable even as it resonates with their kids.

Added bonus: veteran stars Ernie “Ghostbusters” Hudson, John “Smallville” Schneider and Molly “Breakfast Club” Ringwald in meaty roles as adults -- another smart move by ABC Family, which is quickly establishing itself as the Disney Channel's smarter, more substantive corporate cousin.

Placing the blame for newspapers' 900-job loss this week

The Recovering Journalist blog has a sobering post up for anyone connected to the newspaper industry, noting that the total amount of jobs targeted for elimination this past week by major newspapers reaches above 900 positions.

I've been telling friends that being a working newspaper journalist -- and entertainment critic -- feels more and more like being the last penguin left on the ice floe. This morning, a friend and fellow journalist told me he doesn't read the industry blog Romenesko any more because it feels like looking at a roster of the dead.

This was never more true than this past week, when the industry learned of job cuts at the Baltimore Sun (100 jobs), San Jose Mercury News (at least 17 jobs), Palm Beach Post (300 jobs), Boston Herald (160 jobs), Daytona Beach Journal (99 jobs), Hartford Courant (57 jobs), Detroit newspapers (150 buyouts targeted), and more. See an interactive layoff map here and here.

But then blogger Mark Potts goes on to blame this mess on newspapers' complacency, citing -- among other things -- the fact that newspapers have provided their content for free on the Web for many years. And this is where I have to part company with the Recovering Journalist.

Because those of us who have been watching this meltdown in real time know what is truly happening; every source of revenue feeding newspapers is crumbling, either because of the country's massive recession or because of digital technology. And no one in the industry has figured out how to stop it or find a new source of revenue large enough to plug the hole.

Declines in real estate, the auto industry, the airline industry and the retail industry have decimated our advertising market. Craigslist and similar free online advertising services have stolen away our lucrative classified ad business. And fewer people have time for the newspaper, which is depressing our circulation numbers.

When I hear people argue that newspaper didn't innovate soon enough, I never hear anyone propose an innovation that would have actually kept any of this from happening. It is easy enough to say newspapers should not have put their content on the Web for free, but the recording industry found out the hard way how difficult it is to make people pay for anything they can get free online, even illegally. And records have always cost more than a daily newspaper.

The problem newspapers have is that we have indoctrinated our customers for years to value our news product well below what it costs to create it. We used advertising revenue to foot the bill, and now that revenue isn't enough.

So tell me, folks who are criticizing newspapers, how do we find another source of revenue big enough to plug that hole, when even now, advertisers will only pay one-tenth the fee for an online ad that they would pay for a print advertisement? 

 

St. Pete Times to increase price Monday up to 50 cents daily at newsstand, $4 a week for 7-day subscription

Six weeks after the St. Petersburg Times slimmed down its weekday editions, the newspaper will increase prices for both newsstand copies and home delivery subscriptions, raising the weekday-and-Saturday single copy charge to 50 cents and the 7-days-a-week home delivery charge to $4 a week.

Readers will learn of the change in editors notes printed in Saturday's newspaper. The cause: the continuing economic challenges facing every newspaper these days, including increased newsprint prices, dropping advertising revenue and rising fuel costs.

The home subscription increase is an average increase of about 39 cents a week for 7-days-a-week service (lower for weekend only and Sunday only deals), totaling $20.28 more each year. The single copy increase is a 15-cent hike from current levels in St. Petersburg; the single copy charge on Sunday will increase to $1 in Citrus and West Pasco, but will stay at 50 cents in Hillsborough, Central and East Pasco for competitive reasons.

The St. Petersburg Times' newsstand price has often been considered low for a paper of it's size and quality. According to a Washington Post story citing figures from the Newspaper Association of America, the median daily price for newspapers has been 50 cents for a decade and 81 percent of daily newspapers charged 50 cents per copy in 2005. The Post raised its newsstand price to 50 cents on Dec. 31.

According to material collected by the Times from the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the increase will leave the Times tied with the Ft. Myers News Press as the second most expensive 7-day home subscription rate in Florida, behind the Naples Daily News' $4.69 per week, but slightly above the Orlando Sentinel's $3.95 per week, the Miami Herald's $3.54 per week and the Tampa Tribune's $2.94 per week.

This change is part of the newspaper's ongoing drive to increase revenue while weathering the worst newspaper recession in 30 years. Not that I need to encourage you, blog buddies, but feel free to sound off about the changes here -- I forwarded many of your comments about our latest page reductions to top editors here for their perusal.

Emmys release top ten lists for drama and comedy; Heroes out, Family Guy and The Wire in

For the first time in its history, the Emmy academy went along with the pleas of entertainment journalists worldwide and released its list of the top 10 shows competing for five finalist spots in the Best Comedy and Best Drama awards. The actual finalists won't be announced until July 17; Emmy voters are expected to begin voting this weekend.

In comedy, the surprise is HBO newbie Flight of the Conchords in the running, alongside popular freshman series Pushing Daisies. And Fox's Family Guy -- which has always seemed to me like a crasser less funny version of The Simpsons -- is also in the running. Otherwise, the comedy list includes all the series nominated for best comedy last year, proving that Emmy can be as predictable as ever.

In drama, the impact of cable's growing quality is felt even more, with upstart AMC's buzzed-about  drama Mad Men in the running alongside Showtime's Dexter and the Tudors. The big news here may be that HBO only has one nominee in the running, much-overlooked The Wire. The only two shows from last year's nominees not included in this top 10 list is the defunct Sopranos and Heroes -- which offered a strike-shortened season so bad it might as well have been canceled.

So which shows would you like to see take home the brass ring? My predictions for the five finalists in each category are in bold. See if you can pick better!

Top 10 Comedy Series Finalists

Curb Your Enthusiasm
Entourage
Family Guy
Flight of the Conchords
The Office
Pushing Daisies
30 Rock
Two and a Half Men
Ugly Betty
Weeds

Top 10 Drama Series Finalists

Boston Legal
Damages
Dexter
Friday Night Lights 
Grey’s Anatomy
House
Lost
Mad Men
The Tudors
The Wire

CBS to debut most of its new fall shows the week of Sept 22 -- just like always

The TV business will likely be very different once this fall rolls around. But one thing that won't change, is when CBS rolls out its new fall shows. The eye network announced today that most of its new series will hit screens at the end of September, just as in past years, with reality TV competition Survivor bowing the week before.

It's not much of a surprise that the most traditional of the four big networks would also adopt its tried-and-true method for rolling out fall shows. But everyone is trying to gauge the impact of the writer's strike and crumbling media economy on TV schedules, so even sticking with what's been done before feels like big news these days.

Thursday, Sept. 18

8:00-9:00 PM              SURVIVOR (17th Installment Premiere)

Monday, Sept. 22

8:00-8:30 PM              THE BIG BANG THEORY (2nd Season Premiere)

8:30-9:00 PM              HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER (4th Season Premiere)

9:00-9:30 PM              TWO AND A HALF MEN (6th Season Premiere)

9:30-10:00 PM            WORST WEEK (Series Debut)

10:00-11:00 PM          CSI: MIAMI (7th Season Premiere)

Tuesday, Sept. 23

8:00-9:00 PM              NCIS (6th Season Premiere)

9:00-10:00 PM            THE MENTALIST (Series Debut)

10:00-11:00 PM          WITHOUT A TRACE (7th Season Premiere)

Wednesday, Sept. 24

8:00-8:30 PM              THE NEW ADVENTURES OF OLD CHRISTINE

(4th Season Premiere)

8:30-9:00 PM              PROJECT GARY (Series Debut)

9:00-10:00 PM            CRIMINAL MINDS (4th Season Premiere)

10:00-11:00 PM          CSI: NY (5th Season Premiere)

Saturday, Sept. 27

8:00-9:00 PM              CRIMETIME SATURDAY

9:00-10:00 PM            CRIMETIME SATURDAY

10:00-11:00 PM          48 HOURS MYSTERY (Season Premiere)

Sunday, Sept. 28

7:00-8:00 PM              60 MINUTES (41st Season Premiere)

8:00-9:00 PM              THE AMAZING RACE (13th Edition)

9:00-10:00 PM            COLD CASE (6th Season Premiere)

10:00-11:00 PM          THE UNIT (4th Season Premiere)

Friday, Oct. 3

8:00-9:00 PM              GHOST WHISPERER (4th Season Premiere)

9:00-10:00 PM            THE EX LIST (Series Premiere)

10:00-11:00 PM          NUMB3RS (5th Season Premiere)

Thursday, Oct. 9

9:00-10:00 PM            CSI: CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION (9th Season Premiere)

10:00-11:00 PM          ELEVENTH HOUR (Series Debut)

Debut of Tampa Bay's Metromix reveals one area of media still growing

These days, the news about the news is downright depressing: 130 newsroom jobs cut at the Palm Beach Post; copyediting jobs outsourced to India at the Orange County Register; buyouts and possible layoffs at both the Tampa Tribune and St. Petersburg Times.

But there's one area of established media where there's the tiniest bit of growth: online.

The latest example: a local branch of a nationwide network of entertainment-oriented web sites, dubbed Metromix, which debuted Monday from inside the newsroom at WTSP-Ch. 10. Developed as a partnership between WTSP owner Gannett Co. and the Tribune Co. (Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times), Metromix is scheduled to establish about 40 separate web sites across the country focused on their local entertainment scenes -- in the process, creating a unique national platform for online advertisements.

"I've seen the kind of impact it can have in a town as big as Chicago -- it's prevalent in the culture of the young professionals there," said Nathalie Voirin, a former WTSP producer who serves as managing editor for Metromix Tampa Bay, directing the work of four full-time staffers and a network of freelancers from the heart of the CBS affiliate's newsroom in St. Petersburg. "Before you go out there -- you check Metromix to see where the restaurants or clubs are."

Hired in mid-March for the project, Voirin has jumped into a competition with the Times' own online version of its youth-oriented tabloid, TBT*, along with the local alternative weekly, Creative Loafing. Indeed, when Creative Loafing announced the purchase of The Chicago Reader and the Washington City Paper, one of the goals set by publisher Ben Eason was creating the kind of national online ad sales platform Metromix is building.

But while TBT and Loafing present a range of material on their web sites -- news reports, investigative stories, political analysis -- Metromix is focused on entertainment and leisure, with listings, reviews and other material focused pretty tightly on what 21 to 34-year-olds want to do with their time when not at work or school. 

It's also part of WTSP's effort to ramp up its web site and leave behind the notion that local TV station Web sites often lag behind the local newspaper's offerings. The station has streamlined its web design and created an area for mothers dubbed Mom's Tampa Bay.

All this seems to be another example of how resources, effort, and competition are moving from traditional media to the online world. 

 

PBS anchor Jim Lehrer to return to work Thursday after heart surgery

Here's the release from PBS:

Jim Lehrer returns to anchor The NewsHour, tomorrow, Thursday, June 26, for the first time since undergoing a successful heart valve procedure in late April.   Lehrer plans to anchor the broadcast two or three days a week for awhile as he moves toward a full time schedule.

Beyond resuming his anchor duties at The NewsHour, Lehrer will head up PBS' live, primetime, gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Democratic and Republican national conventions this summer.   NewsHour senior correspondents Gwen Ifill, Ray Suarez, Margaret Warner and Judy Woodruff will join Lehrer in reporting the convention events and developments from Denver (Democratic National Convention; August 25 to 28) and St. Paul (Republican National Convention; September 1 to 4).   

Denis Leary dishes on Rescue Me and its special "minisodes"

It's a little like feverishly opening a birthday present, only to find half a c-note inside (it's nice, but you really need the other half).

But the great minds at Denis Leary's ribald dramedy Rescue Me decided to apologize to fans for delaying the start of the new season to spring 2009 by crafting a batch of "minisodes" -- five-minute vignettes, detached from the show's ongoing storylines, offering bite-size bits of sidesplitting comedy and guy culture gone wild.

In the first one, which debuted last night, dense firefighter Sean Garritty struggles to stick to a fast after the Lieutenant makes his legendary homemade doughtnuts. In another, Leary's Tommy Gavin has a odd dream about sleeping with his ex-wife and ex-lover at the same time, only to see a pal from the firehouse join in. And Gavin's speechifying about the best bar for guys to hang out in falls apart when he sees who buddy Franco pickup in a nightspot he would normally avoid.

I spent some time with Leary last month on the set of Rescue Me -- standing feet away from a pre-crack bust Tatum O'Neal! -- hanging in his well-appointed trailer and watching him film a sidesplitting scene with comic pal Lenny Clarke, whose character is freaking out over the death of the father of Leary's character, Tommy Gavin.

We were plopped in a corner of Queens with well-manicured lawns and middle-class houses, with a row of dressing room/trailers parked alongside a neighborhood middle school. Rescue Me is often shot in actual domiciles, leaving little room for nosy reporters to watch interior scenes, so I had to be content with watching the outside stuff, holing up with an impossibly thin Leary between scenes in his trailer.

Here's the bottom end of that conversation, edited for clarity, followed by a window to the very first Rescue Me minisode, in case you missed last night's debut.

Leary: Well, this is a weird thing for us because we’re doing basically two seasons as one because of the strike, which is probably, I mean, who knows why, but it’s probably meant to be a good thing. So we’re doing 22 (episodes) instead of 13.

Deggans: Are they going to air them together?

L: Yeah, it’s going to be six months, you know, and so it’s … and one of the comedy lines, which is based on a true story, is the three younger guys are opening a bar together. Instead of having to have all these side jobs, they decide to open a bar together which is just …

D: Of course it’s a train wreck. (laughter)

L: But I think it’ll be surprising to people what kind of a train wreck it is ‘cause two friends of mine who are firemen actually did that. And so you think it’s a train wreck, but you know (laughter) … I’m telling you, when you see this story, ‘cause I lived through it with these two friends of mine, the way the train wreck occurs is the last thing you think … of course it is a train wreck, it’s just way bigger than you ever thought it was gonna be. And then, you know, Tommy dealing with the death of his father which, of course, of all the deaths, that’s …

D: And that was just amazing what you guys did with Charles Durning passing away in the ball field. That was really good.

L:  Both parents are gone, which is strange. It hasn’t happened to me. I’ve lost my father but … really a good friend of mine but he’s a guy who’s like 60-something years old. When he was young, I got in a lot of trouble, you know, with the law and everything else … a really successful guy. His father died last year, and that was after his mother had already died, and he said this strange thing to me. He said, well, that’s it. I said, what do you mean? And he said, you know, there’s nobody left. I can do whatever I want now. I said, what are you talking about? He goes, something strange. When both of your parents are gone, ‘cause even, he said, when my father was alive, there was still that thing in my head like I can’t embarrass my parents again. Now I feel like, I could kill somebody. (laughter) And I said, oh, wow. So there’s this weird moral window that you didn’t know

D: That seems like such a Tommy Gavin kind of thing.

L: Well, sub-conscious or conscious, it’s an interesting thing that all of a sudden, you’re not accountable to somebody except your kids.

From Crackle: Rescue Me: Episode 1

Saturday Night Live to air its debut episode Saturday, as tribute to host George Carlin

As a longtime TV critic, I can't help seeing the cynical side of this move -- which could be an easy way to garner extra weekend viewership at the time when the show is in reruns.

But it's cool, nonetheless, to see Saturday Night Live pay tribute to George Carlin by re-airing their first episode this Saturday, featuring the late comic as the very first host. It may be a measure of how mainstream the show is now that the seminal figures who populated the show back then are mostly gone - Carlin, Belushi, Radner, Michael O'Donohue and Richard Pryor, to name a few. Even the regulars from back then who are still around -- Dan Aykroyd, Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, to name a few more -- shed their dangerous edges quite a while ago.

At the very least, young SNL fans can get a sense of what the show was like when it really was a dangerous ride. Here's part of his monologue from that show, courtesy of Hulu.com: