Dial File: Raging at aging on television

Friday, Jan. 29, 1999 | 12:03 p.m.

Repeat after me: "Over 50 is nifty. Under 30 is nerdy."

Marketing madness? Or a new programming prophecy? Are broadcasters' tastes in viewers slowly shifting from "The Wonder Years" to The Vericose Vein Years?

The answer lies in the seesaw saga of network "demographics": That's corporate camouflage for how to foist your product on a specific (YOUNG! YOUNG! YOUNG!) audience by practicing age, gender, income and cultural opportunism.

Think "Moesha" (young, black and hip) vs. "Diagnosis Murder" (old, white and hip replacement).

The pros and cons of demographically-driven, adolescent-addled programming -- network TV is awash in peach-fuzzed studs and perky-breasted babes -- fuel an eternal TV debate: Is it business? Entertainment? The business of entertainment?

In the early '90s, NBC, ABC and Fox philosophized -- actually, rhapsodized -- about the necessity of narrowing their focus to the lusted-after 18-to-49 age range (18-to-34 was approaching orgasm), delivering to advertisers the spend-happy hordes of viewers they crave. Oldsters? Cursed with the most unforgivable character flaw in a consumer culture: They're not impulsive spendthrifts.

Older-skewing CBS was the only network nervy enough to perceive 50-plus viewers as a plus.

Kick it up to the late '90s and the youth-will-spend trend peaks with the upstart WB. You're watching this network and you're older than "Felicity," "Dawson" or "Buffy"? Thanks, Gramps, but why don't you go play with your defibrillator?

The prevailing Madison Avenue wisdom: Youth equals gold. Age equals mold. And this business is cold -- but not without ironic amusement:

As aging baby boomers find their hips widening more than their hip quotient -- the national median age rose from 32.8 in 1990 to 35.3 in 1998 -- the networks confronted the advancing average age of their viewerships in a recent study. UPN? 36.7 ABC? 41.8. NBC? 42.7. CBS? 52.2. Even fans of frisky Fox -- a relatively rambunctious 34.2 -- have long passed puberty. Only WB -- at 26.7 -- remains twentysomething-based.

Oddly, it's the oldsters (relatively speaking) keeping the traditional broadcasters breathing. Meanwhile, cable continues to nickel-and-dime the nets to distraction, slicing off slivers of viewing groups -- including young, cable-age viewers raised with zero loyalty to the networks -- through ever-narrowing "niche" programming. (Do we really need The Gossip Channel?)

Suddenly, wholesale dismissal of the burgeoning 50-plus pack seems like a ... oops! ... youthful indiscretion. Not to mention a king-size kamikaze mission.

And suddenly we're hearing: "Creativity just sort of tends to disappear and it makes it look like we're just selling soap" (that's UPN honcho Dean Valentine on the evils of programming to demos); "The other guys are really buying into the niche programming and it'll become indistinguishable" (that's CBS Entertainment President Nancy Tellem); "We want to be a broadcast network that has something for everybody" (that's ABC Senior Vice President Alan Wurtzel); even NBC's Scott Sassa is talking about tempering his net's sex drive -- a clear nod to maturity, even in Viagra America.

They just might put the "broad" back in "broadcasting." That's nifty. Not nerdy.