Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
When youngsters flee TV, nostalgic reboots pay
After the networks announced their new fall lineups earlier this month, I got this exasperated message from a millennial viewer who has — as have an increasing number of younger folks — abandoned cable and watches his programming via streaming services.
“This fall, CBS has Magnum P.I., Murphy Brown, Hawaii Five-0 and MacGyver on the air,” he writes. “ABC has Roseanne. NBC has three shows with Chicago in the title but not Chicago Hope. Will & Grace is back. Fox has Lethal Weapon and a Tim Allen show [the resurrected Last Man Standing].
“What decade is this? It seems network TV is ‘fighting’ cord cutters by doubling down on nostalgic ’80s and ’90s shows. Shrinking target demographics leads to microtargeting older viewers. Am I seeing this clearly?”
I’ll answer that by quoting the star of CBS’ The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, who was the host of his network’s upfront presentation and didn’t miss the opportunity to make note of the same thing.
As reported in Variety, Colbert said, “In addition to the big hit MacGyver, this fall CBS will have the reboot of Magnum P.I and Murphy Brown, guaranteeing that we will be the No. 1 network in 2018 and 1988.”
Chuckle if you want, but the pilot for ABC’s revival of Roseanne was seen by an astonishing 27.26 million viewers once you factored in the live plus seven days of delayed viewing on DVRs and On Demand.
A recent Business Insider poll found 89 percent of millennials and 78 percent of Gen X viewers watched Netflix instead of live TV. And 62 percent of millennials preferred to binge watch multiple episodes in one sitting.
If younger viewers are opting out of broadcast and cable anyway, then the networks are going to try other ways to help the bottom line. If that means dipping into the nostalgia well, then so be it. If that means “micro-targeting older viewers,” then they’ll do it.
Here, according to Business Insider are last season’s Top 10 shows and their number of average weekly viewers based on Nielsen ratings,
1. Roseanne, ABC, 23.2 million.
2. The Big Bang Theory, CBS, 18.7 million.
3. This Is Us, NBC, 18.3 million. 4. NCIS, CBS, 17.1 million. 5. Young Sheldon, CBS, 16.5 million.
6. The Good Doctor, ABC, 15.8 million.
7. Bull, CBS, 14.7 million. 8. Blue Bloods, CBS, 13.2 million.
9. NCIS: New Orleans, CBS, 12.7 million.
10. The Voice, NBC, 12.5 million.
CBS, the network with the oldest viewing audience, has six of the Top 10 shows and they have a correspondingly senior audience. For example, the median age of The Big Bang Theory viewers is 56.2; Young Sheldon is 57.4.
All the above are “meat-and-potato” programs — not an avant-garde, envelopepushing series among them. If you want edgier stuff such as Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones or AMC’s forthcoming dark comedy Dietland you’ll have to go to cable.
Meanwhile, if you want a nostalgic heaping helping of refried golden oldies, well, it looks as if the networks are ready to serve it up.
PINK SLIP RECAP
Sunday I finished recapping the five broadcast networks’ upfront presentations where they revealed their plans for the new fall season. I also included lists of which shows had been canceled.
In the past, I’ve always gotten a gaggle of emails asking that I put all the axed shows in one convenient roundup. Here they are, all the shows that were canceled from last season broken down by network.
ABC: Quantico; Alex, Inc.; Kevin (Probably) Saves the World; Ten Days in the Valley; Deception; Somewhere Between; The Crossing; Marvel’s Inhumans; The Middle; Once Upon a Time; and The Mayor. Designated Survivor was also cut, but there are reports a search is underway to find it another home.
CBS: Kevin Can Wait; Wisdom of the Crowd; Scorpion; Me, Myself and I; Superior Donuts; 9JKL; Zoo and Living Biblically.
The CW: Life Sentence; The Originals; and Valor. Given one more season to wrap things up are Jane the Virgin; Crazy Ex-Girlfriend; and iZombie.
Fox: Lucifer; The Exorcist; Wayward Pines; The Mick; The X-Files; New Girl; and Last Man on Earth. Brooklyn NineNine was also canned, but immediately picked up by NBC.
NBC: Rise; Great News; The Brave; Law & Order: True Crime; The Night Shift; Shades of Blue; and Taken. Still to be decided are Timeless and Champions.
The TV Column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Email:
mstorey@arkansasonline.com