Not Suitable for Adults
I was watching the E! True Hollywood Story of Beverly Hills 90210 the other day and one executive mentioned that the success of the show was how target audiences really began. Think of it, before, what mattered was the amount of viewers, standing in the ratings, and a loyal audience. This was the way it was in daytime and in primetime. It was important that there was a large and loyal audience and if one specific market of viewers, whether young people or African-Americans wasn't interested in watching, who cared? Well, that was until 90210 actually survived against Cheers because youngsters actually had a show for them instead of the very generation specific bar comedy. When 90210 had a spin-off for young adults, that's when the industry really became demographic heavy. Now it mattered whether kids were watching The Cosby Show or The Simpsons, whether black people were watching Friends or wrestling, or whether young people were watching Diagnosis Murder. Why? Well, that I'm not entirely sure of. Why does it matter so much what kids think? How often do we really respect kids' opinions on day to day matters? Do they deserve it? They are young, they are growing, they are immature, and can be dazzled by things that are slick and pretty easier than adults and the elderly. Granted, not all kids are like that, I certainly wasn't. But the mob mentality that developed with 90210 set the incredibly low standard for the teen demographic. The show was not the smartest primetime soap ever to come on the market, but it had pretty people, musical beds, and their actors constantly in the tabloids. Sure, when the show limped into its' last two seasons the already hot and cold writing quality was a problem, but the fact that some of their most loyal fans were now nearly thirty was much a bigger problem. 90210 is just one example, Dawson's Creek is another one, shows that deal with kids that refuse to mature while the audience grows up, means the actual fanatic success of the show is short-lived. So why on earth would executives want shows that are so centered on teenagers that the audience not only won't branch out, but the audience upon growing up will move on?
But while I find it puzzling that primetime executives care where their ratings come from, it isn't so insane that daytime executives focus on the younger set. Why? Because you need to get a new bunch of viewers every ten or so years and the best bunch to get would be young viewers. Getting viewers when they are watching with their parents, with classmates, or in a college dorm is the way to keep them hooked for years. You then have an endless supply of loyal viewers. When one generation grows old and dies, there is another one to take its' place. For example, very few are still alive who have watched Guiding Light for all of its' fifty years on television, but there are other loyal ages groups to take their place either because they watched with their parents or because GL's youth oriented stories hooked their generation. The thirty-somethings that have watched GL for twenty years had to start when they were teens when the Four Musketeers were a very popular group of teen characters. This isn't some new revelation; soaps have always represented several different generations, not because they were so focused on numbers, but because they wanted a variety of people to relate to characters. Having young, old, divorced, widowed, black, and Hispanic characters gave all viewers something to relate to. I don't think there is a soap watcher alive that likes every single character on his or her soap, I don't. But the key has always been that with something for everyone, you stick around to watch what you relate to. Young viewers will continue to follow characters they watched grow up, whether it is GL's Phillip Spaulding or All My Children's Bianca Montgomery. The problem now is that television has become numbers hungry and executives want teen centered storylines yesterday to drive those numbers up and they'll try anything to do it. What makes it more pathetic is that it not only doesn't work, but they lose older viewers in the process.
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