The Big Four broadcast television network audiences are growing older by the year, with the median age of most viewers having risen nearly 10 years in the last decade across the board.
And the networks are to blame.
And they don't care, as long as they're beating one another.
Ten years ago, ABC and NBC had a median age audience in the low 40s; today, ABC is over 50 and NBC is right under 50. CBS is the oldest-skewing network with a median age in the low 50s.
Even Fox -- the once younger-skewing network -- is aging. Fox's audience was in the mid-30s 10 years ago, and now it's in the mid-40s.
The data comes from TV research guru Steve Sternberg, who came up with a formula to calculate broadcast network median age in 1991 when he was at ad agency Bozell.
Sternberg says it's the way the networks are programming themselves that is causing the upward aging, and the networks think that's OK -- as long as they can win the key demo races amongst themselves.
"First place is what matters," said Sternberg, who most recently was head of research at media buying conglomerate Magna, and now writes his own "Sternberg Report."
"They have found that if their median age goes up, they can still draw a lot of 18- to 49-year-olds. Fox doesn't care if its median age audience is over 50, as long as it wins the 18-49 demo race."
That's possible because a network can still have a predominant number of older viewers but win the younger demo race against the other networks -- or at least be competitive.
Case in point, CBS -- the oldest network, remember -- came in second in the advertiser-friendly 18-49 demo this season.
And if you take mass-reach "American Idol" away from Fox, it doesn't win the 18-49 race like it has for the past six years.
Sternberg says programming is the key: Fewer comedies and serialized dramas, and more procedural dramas, reality and game shows, are driving up the median age (see chart).
Sternberg offers some examples of how younger-skewing comedies can help keep a network's median age down.
"The median age for NBC's Thursday night comedies are all under 40, and this has helped keep their overall median age under 50," Sternberg says. "'The Office' has a median age of only 35, '30 Rock's' is 38, 'Parks and Recreation's' is 39 and 'Community's' is 40."
He said ABC could reduce its median age by adding more comedies like this past season's freshman sitcoms "Modern Family" and "Cougar Town," both with a median age audience of 43.
And he points out that while some of the CBS' comedies skew over 50, they will skew younger than all of the network's procedural dramas, which hover in the high 50s.
