The Future of TV

I had an entirely different theme set in mind for this week’s column, but the folks over at Variety published two related articles this past week that caught my interest, spurring me to write about that particular subject matter instead.

The first article had to do with The CW – 75% of which was recently purchased by the TV station group giant Nexstar. According to the Variety article, Nexstar COO and President Tom Carter stated during a conference call on Monday that the average age of the network’s viewer is:

Drumroll, please… 57.4 years of age.

Now, pick your mouth up from the floor and fully take that statement in.

The youngest network (The CW was founded 16 years ago when The WB and UPN merged) and the broadcaster with the “presumbed” youngest audience is watched by people over the age of 55 more than any other age bracket.

So much for the“key” 18 to 39 year olds that we’ve been told can make or break a TV show, right?!

This very fact is something that I have been harping on for decades!

Ever since I broke the threshold of 40 (which is nearly 15 years ago now, yep, I’m putting my age out there for all to see), I’ve been on a tangent about how important OLDER viewers are to the TV world and those all-important commercials that pay for the networks to air their programs.

And now, finally, I am proven correct.

As that article above clearly shows, Variety “independently confirmed (this measurement) from Nielsen” (the folks who have been the centerpiece of determining ratings for TV shows for eons). This article clearly showed that The CW doesn’t even have the youngest audience (despite nearly all of their programs being YA-centric – which means young-adult-centric if you’re not familiar with the abbreviation). That “title” goes to FOX, which has an average age of 56.6 [not much of a difference, I know].

All of this has to be taken with a grain of salt, however, because this information only looks at linear viewers; those viewers who only watch programs based on a broadcaster’s programming schedule, not watching programs on streaming services at their own convenience.

Now, if you look at the unofficial viewing data from streaming, The CW “supposedly” is consumed by an audience largely in their late 20s and early 30s; but since streaming services don’t judge their viewership in the same way as the major broadcast networks [ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX and The CW], you are free to believe or disbelieve that statement.

The following is from the folks at Variety, showing the “broadcast primetime live+7 median age” for the five major broadcast networks (you can see the more in-depth chart via the link above):

CBS:         64.3
NBC:        60.0
ABC:         60.5
FOX:         56.6
The CW: 57.4

Source: Nielsen NPM

Then there was the Variety article that stated “U.S. streaming tops cable TV viewing for the first time.”

What exactly does that mean?

Basically, “Americans now watch more stuff on TV from streaming services than either broadcast or cable TV. Led by Netflix, streaming platforms in July 2022 – for the first time – surpassed cable networks to claim the largest share of U.S. TV viewing for the month.”

Cutting the cord is nothing new in this day and age. More and more people are getting rid of their cable lines, replacing that with streaming services. They want to watch their shows whenever they want to; they want to binge their favorite shows whenever they want; and there is no more “real” appointment TV any longer. Just like how watercooler shows are a thing of the past because of cell phones and social media, viewers are not relying on scheduled programming to watch their shows.

This particular article clearly showed that Netflix holds “the largest share of overall TV viewing among streaming platforms with 8%” followed by Hulu with a 3.6% share with the caveat that YouTube (including the digital pay-TV service YouTubeTV) has a 7.3% share. These numbers, however, do not account for mobile or web streaming.

The following chart is courtesy of that Variety article:

What are your thoughts on these latest revelations? Please share your thoughts with us.

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