Zoneboy
09-15-2008, 05:32 AM
Link (http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/essays/article795169.ece)
Just when I thought our youth-obsessed society couldn't do much more to marginalize the baby boomer generation, of which I'm a member, TV Land cable network has decided to divorce us for a younger viewing audience.
The network, owned by Viacom Inc., announced that it will curtail its lineup of prime-time nostalgic shows that boomers grew up with and love. The change should be completed by the end of 2009.
TV Land executives say that programs like The Andy Griffith Show, The Beverly Hillbillies, Gunsmoke, Hogan's Heroes, Green Acres and Leave it to Beaver, all reruns, have grown moldy to viewers in their mid 40s and younger. They will be replaced with original programs, especially reality shows.
"Putting more original television on a channel dedicated to classic television is a risk in some ways," Doug Herzog, president of MTV Networks Entertainment Group, which includes TV Land, told the Wall Street Journal. "But the idea is to bring new people into the tent."
Herzog said the new shows will focus on dating and romance. From the standpoint of Viacom, the makeover is smart business. By attracting a younger audience, TV Land can broaden its advertising base. It will be able to target companies such as movie studios, fast-food restaurants and video game producers. Now many of the network's ads are aimed at products for older people and hawk mobility scooters, diabetes testing devices and health and life insurance.
While I can't begrudge TV Land for wanting to make all the money it can with younger viewers and new advertisers with wider appeal than the Power Chair crowd, I lament the loss of shows I've watched and loved since childhood and as an adult.
Like many other boomers I know, I don't watch a lot of TV, especially the networks. When I do turn on the set, however, I want to relax — if I'm not watching the news. I want clean entertainment I can watch with my grandkids without the risk of being reported to the Department of Children and Families for child abuse.
Being a nostalgic old codger, I want to be transported back to a simpler era, to a time of uncomplicated plots, when the characters were funny in their own right, like The Andy Griffith Show's Deputy Barney Fife, Floyd the barber, Ernest T. Bass and the Darlings. I admire Sheriff Taylor's homespun child-rearing. It is as humorous and warm as it is morally instructive.
Each day, I still enjoy the innocent mishaps of Leave It to Beaver. With all of the show's childhood antics, the foulest word spoken is "whacked," like when Wally tells his mother, June, that "Beaver is a whacked out little kid," forcing June to reply: "Wally, please don't use that awful word." Even Eddie Haskell, the show's bona fide "creepy guy," invariably gets his comeuppance in a way that harms no one. And that "mean old Judy," who torments Beaver in Miss Landers' class, is likable in a special way.
Since 1962, I've been enjoying The Beverly Hillbillies. Thanks to TV Land, I still enjoy the Clampett clan each day that I'm near a television. Indeed, I don't apologize for rooting for Granny, an unreconstructed Confederate fighter, when she gets away with brewing and sipping her "rheumatiz medicine." Few small-screen characters are funnier than Jethro, the dumbest of the Clampetts, who sees little difference between wanting to be a brain surgeon or a fry cook or a "double naught spy" like James Bond.
I'm certain that Lucy and Ricky, and Ward and June, had carnal knowledge. They have children; they didn't adopt. I don't need to see versions of today's cheap, graphic scenes, in which lust passes for love, to tell me how June and Ward produced The Beaver and Wally.
To my regret, TV Land will scale back its classic programming to make room for original scripts and reality shows such the Family Foreman and She's Got the Look.
I'll be tuning out. I guess I'll have to buy my favorite old shows on DVD and watch them anytime I want. That's a good deal.
Just when I thought our youth-obsessed society couldn't do much more to marginalize the baby boomer generation, of which I'm a member, TV Land cable network has decided to divorce us for a younger viewing audience.
The network, owned by Viacom Inc., announced that it will curtail its lineup of prime-time nostalgic shows that boomers grew up with and love. The change should be completed by the end of 2009.
TV Land executives say that programs like The Andy Griffith Show, The Beverly Hillbillies, Gunsmoke, Hogan's Heroes, Green Acres and Leave it to Beaver, all reruns, have grown moldy to viewers in their mid 40s and younger. They will be replaced with original programs, especially reality shows.
"Putting more original television on a channel dedicated to classic television is a risk in some ways," Doug Herzog, president of MTV Networks Entertainment Group, which includes TV Land, told the Wall Street Journal. "But the idea is to bring new people into the tent."
Herzog said the new shows will focus on dating and romance. From the standpoint of Viacom, the makeover is smart business. By attracting a younger audience, TV Land can broaden its advertising base. It will be able to target companies such as movie studios, fast-food restaurants and video game producers. Now many of the network's ads are aimed at products for older people and hawk mobility scooters, diabetes testing devices and health and life insurance.
While I can't begrudge TV Land for wanting to make all the money it can with younger viewers and new advertisers with wider appeal than the Power Chair crowd, I lament the loss of shows I've watched and loved since childhood and as an adult.
Like many other boomers I know, I don't watch a lot of TV, especially the networks. When I do turn on the set, however, I want to relax — if I'm not watching the news. I want clean entertainment I can watch with my grandkids without the risk of being reported to the Department of Children and Families for child abuse.
Being a nostalgic old codger, I want to be transported back to a simpler era, to a time of uncomplicated plots, when the characters were funny in their own right, like The Andy Griffith Show's Deputy Barney Fife, Floyd the barber, Ernest T. Bass and the Darlings. I admire Sheriff Taylor's homespun child-rearing. It is as humorous and warm as it is morally instructive.
Each day, I still enjoy the innocent mishaps of Leave It to Beaver. With all of the show's childhood antics, the foulest word spoken is "whacked," like when Wally tells his mother, June, that "Beaver is a whacked out little kid," forcing June to reply: "Wally, please don't use that awful word." Even Eddie Haskell, the show's bona fide "creepy guy," invariably gets his comeuppance in a way that harms no one. And that "mean old Judy," who torments Beaver in Miss Landers' class, is likable in a special way.
Since 1962, I've been enjoying The Beverly Hillbillies. Thanks to TV Land, I still enjoy the Clampett clan each day that I'm near a television. Indeed, I don't apologize for rooting for Granny, an unreconstructed Confederate fighter, when she gets away with brewing and sipping her "rheumatiz medicine." Few small-screen characters are funnier than Jethro, the dumbest of the Clampetts, who sees little difference between wanting to be a brain surgeon or a fry cook or a "double naught spy" like James Bond.
I'm certain that Lucy and Ricky, and Ward and June, had carnal knowledge. They have children; they didn't adopt. I don't need to see versions of today's cheap, graphic scenes, in which lust passes for love, to tell me how June and Ward produced The Beaver and Wally.
To my regret, TV Land will scale back its classic programming to make room for original scripts and reality shows such the Family Foreman and She's Got the Look.
I'll be tuning out. I guess I'll have to buy my favorite old shows on DVD and watch them anytime I want. That's a good deal.