Viewership, Even on Streaming, Is Getting Older

Linear TV has been suffering for quite some time now with lower ratings and fewer eyeballs watching their shows live. In fact, I can say just from the year-end entertainment reports that I compile every year, that ratings all across the board for linear TV have steadily fallen. More to the point, it would seem that the eyeballs that are watching linear TV are gradually getting older.

And the same – or at least close to the same – seems to be true now for streaming at least according to a recent article at The Hollywood Reporter.

Case in point is the short-lived Netflix TV series The Boroughs from the creative minds – Matt and Ross Duffer – behind Stranger Things. The viewers of that series, much like the cast of the supernatural drama that included Alfred Molina, Geena Davis, Alfre Woodard, Clarke Peters, Bill Pullman and Denis O’Hare, were primarily over the age of 50. In fact, out of the 1.2 billion viewing minutes for The Boroughs, 57 percent of those viewers were over the age of 50.

That being said, the report goes on to say that the percentage of younger viewers did improve in subsequent weeks, but the “greatest concentration of viewers remained in the demographic similar to that of the on-screen characters in the series: again, those over the age of 50.

It should be noted, again according to the good folks at The Hollywood Reporter, that “having an audience that skews toward viewers 50 and older is pretty commonplace now. The median streaming viewer is still 15 to 20 years younger than the median network or cable viewer, but the gap has started to narrow some.”

The article went on to say that for the first quarter of this year, Landman on Paramount+ as well as the Netflix dramas The Night Agent, The Lincoln Lawyer and Virgin River “all got 60 percent or more of their watch time from viewers 50 (years of age) or older.” That same age group “accounted for almost half of viewing time for The Pitt on HBO Max and the Netflix mini-series His & Hers.”

College-aged kids in 2008 were “really streaming first,” according to Brian Fuhrer, the Senior VP of Product Strategy at Nielsen (the primary source for all things ratings), but now that many of them are either close to or in their 40’s, the “demography of an aging population” is becoming a bit more commonplace even on streaming services.

The Hollywood Reporter had an interesting chart of the top 10 original streaming series with the most watch time from viewers 50 years of age and older in the first quarter of this year, and they consist of the following:

[Photo Credit: Netflix]

The Pitt (HBO Max) – 6.40 billion minutes watched – 47% over age of 50
Landman (Paramount+) – 5.97 billion minutes watched – 60% over age of 50
Bridgerton (Netflix) – 5.82 billion minutes watched – 39% over age of 50
Stranger Things (Netflix) 5.65 billion minutes watched – 27% over age of 50
The Lincoln Lawyer (Netflix) – 5.61 billion minutes watched – 64% over age of 50
The Night Agent (Netflix) – 4.26 billion minutes watched – 60% over age of 50
His & Hers (Netflix) – 3.42 billion minutes watched – 47% over age of 50
Virgin River (Netflix) – 2.94 billion minutes watched – 63% over age of 50
The Traitors (Peacock) – 2.39 billion minutes watched – 34% over age of 50
Fallout (Amazon Prime Video) – 2.27 billion minutes watched – 32$ over age of 50

This article also went on to say that in addition to “early adopters” of streaming services – in other words, those who flocked to streaming services before the general viewing audience – are getting older but also that streaming has “become much more widely adopted among all age groups in the past decade-plus.” Streaming now “accounts for almost half of all TV use, and according to Fuhrer, “It’s (streaming services) commanding huge audiences, and it’s bringing a lot more people over (from linear TV or elsewhere).”

In the end, viewership on both linear TV and streaming services are getting older, and that is unlikely to change as the years continue to roll by.

[Featured Image Photo Credit: Pinterest]