Why was CBS called "the old people's network"....

[catlover79]

This may have been the most shocking song to ever be sung on Lawrence Welk's show.

[biffbronson]

Originally Posted by Yong Fang

Lawrence Welk was an old person's show, and when I mean old, I mean for grannies in their 70's and 80's back in the 1970's and 1980's. That music was so old fashioned. It was old fashioned and square in 1945.

It's too bad that there seems to be no one on these boards who can appreciate that show -- and as I said, it wasn't a CBS series to begin with, so we're off on a tangent. But I'm a fan of Sandi Griffiths, so I keep watching (and hoping that her episodes are the ones shown).

It's very easy to slam something you don't like, and say more or less that you're too "hip" to enjoy it -- but there was some good music on there, and it's too bad that it gets dismissed so harshly. I've watched it pretty much most of my life -- pre-teen, teens, and later in my 40s in the current PBS run -- so not all of the viewers had one foot in the grave, as you would have us believe.

[Mr. Television]

Originally Posted by biffbronson

It's too bad that there seems to be no one on these boards who can appreciate that show -- and as I said, it wasn't a CBS series to begin with, so we're off on a tangent. But I'm a fan of Sandi Griffiths, so I keep watching (and hoping that her episodes are the ones shown).

It's very easy to slam something you don't like, and say more or less that you're too "hip" to enjoy it -- but there was some good music on there, and it's too bad that it gets dismissed so harshly. I've watched it pretty much most of my life -- pre-teen, teens, and later in my 40s in the current PBS run -- so not all of the viewers had one foot in the grave, as you would have us believe.

No and I joke about the show but it was good music to listen to and my parents were in their 30's and 40's at the time the syndicated version ran and they liked the show. It still runs sometimes on my PBS station.

[TMC]

On the Reputation of CBS as the Older Viewers' Network

I have recently had occasion to think about CBS' reputation as, well, an older person's TV channel.

One explanation for that reputation I have come across is that CBS was the king of the ratings back in the '70s and early '80s, thanks in large part to Norman Lear (All in the Family was the #1 show on TV for five straight years, and he had Maude, and Good Times, and The Jeffersons), and Dallas, and MASH, and Hawaii Five-O and Kojak, and 60 Minutes, and The Dukes of Hazzard, and Magnum P.I. and . . . well, you get the picture. In the 1973-1974 season it had nine of the top ten shows, eight the next season, and if there were ups and downs after that, between the 1979-1980 and 1984-1985 seasons on average seven of the top ten and eleven of the top twenty rated shows were running on that one channel, a truly extraordinary proportion of the market. Of course, CBS' hit machine virtually sputtered out later in the decade (during which one was more likely to see NBC at the top, with the likes of Cheers and Family Ties and The A-Team and The Cosby Show). The result was, presumably, that anyone who was still watching CBS was someone the channel won over in earlier, better days, who were sticking with their declining hits down to the end after most others jumped ship, were simply in the habit of watching the channel when they sat down in the front of the TV, and so because they were on the channel and see a promotion and maybe get interested, or just happened to have the channel on when the show started, wound up following shows that the rest of the public never noticed or never got interested in because their attention was directed elsewhere. And because the hits that made CBS viewers of people were from years earlier, and because it seems to have been the case that compared with younger viewers those older viewers were in their TV viewing habits more prone to follow channels than shows, that audience was on the whole older than the average.

I find this explanation plausible. But it also seems to me a matter of such hits as the channel managed to have when it faltered. Consider the biggest hit CBS generated between Magnum and the end of the century--Murder, She Wrote. Indeed, for the decade or so from 1986-1987 on, by which point most of the older hits were either gone from the air (like the Norman Lear sitcoms or MASH), or in decline (like Dallas), 60 Minutes and Murder, She Wrote were the CBS shows far and away most likely to make the Nielsen ratings' top ten--a weekly TV newsmagazine then late into its second decade (which had the curmudgeonly Andy Rooney for a mascot), and a "cozy" mystery series about a sixtysomething mystery writer solving murders--which were hardly the thing to bring in that younger crowd. And even if other CBS shows also made appearances in the top ten, like Touched by an Angel and Everybody Loves Raymond (a show about watching grouchy middle-aged people fighting each other when they were not fighting with even grouchier old people), they, along with more modest but still important successes like Diagnosis: Murder and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, affirmed the impression of a channel catering to an older audience. Then, as a result of holding on to viewers won in past days while finding it tougher to get new viewers the channel's viewers were on the whole older; the channel's management responded disproportionately to material aimed at an older audience; and so CBS kept the "old people's shows" on the air, and picked up new ones; while younger viewers passed on its offerings.

Still, when considering why this went so far it may be helpful to remember that, contrary to the solipsistic view prevailing, the outcome of a competition is never a matter of just what one party does, but what the competitors do as well--and it was the case that in these years the competition was getting a lot tougher, with there being that much more to draw away the attention of those younger viewers. After all, between the mid-'80s and mid-'90s the country saw the arrival of three new broadcast networks, all of which were very aggressively chasing younger viewers, and in at least some degree catching them. FOX had 21 Jump Street and Beverly Hills 90210 and Party of Five, while the newer and even more youth-oriented WB had Dawson's Creek and Felicity and 7th Heaven (and Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Charmed and Smallville for sci-fi fans), and UPN had Veronica Mars. Cable was scoring, too, with MTV, for instance, airing shows like Beavis and Butthead and The Real World. Meanwhile, if NBC had Matlock, The Golden Girls and Empty Nest it also had its family sitcoms, and much more youth-oriented shows like the college-set A Different World, and not long after, Friends, and Seinfeld (which if not being about teens or twentysomethings was not exactly about "adults" either, and still commanded quite the youth audience at the time), while ABC had its own youth-friendly TGIF block.

Not unrelated was that matter of "edginess." Where CBS had once been more daring and provocative than its rivals (as with the Norman Lear sitcoms, the politics of which ABC refused to touch--as one sees in its completely-missed-the-point attempt at All in the Family-minus-the-politics, the short-lived The Paul Lynde Show), it was now the channel known for offering safe, cozy stuff as the others pushed the envelope, with CBS offering Touched by an Angel as ABC contributed to broadcast TV's last truly great bout of moral panic over sex-and-violence-on-TV with NYPD Blue. (Indeed, it may say a lot that CBS' line-up from those days now makes up such a large part of the weekday lineup of the Hallmark channels.)

Certainly CBS did make some effort to vary its offerings that way, scoring cult successes with quirkier and sometimes more daring material (like The Flash, or Picket Fences), and even a measure of real commercial success (as with Northern Exposure), but when it broke with its pattern it seems to have more often been a matter of trying to make something out of its rivals' declining properties and outright cast-offs, and often not succeeding (as with its picking up longtime TGIF staple Family Matters well past its peak, only to see the onetime top twenty hit fail to make the top hundred in its one season on the channel, finishing out its run at a dismal #108). The result was that even when the channel started having top ten-caliber hits with a broader appeal--indeed, began setting trends with shows like the reality TV-pioneering Survivor and forensics show boom-launching CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (I didn't say they were good trends, just that CBS launched them)--the old person's image stuck and the channel never quite shook it. But then TV was becoming an old person's scene anyway, the young inclining toward the Internet, especially after streaming took off, and indeed a glance at the Nielsen ratings these past few years, dominated by the NCIS franchise, and The Big Bang Theory franchise, and Blue Bloods, make it look like it's the '70s all over again, with 2020-2021 seeing it ratings champion for thirteen straight years.

[biffbronson]

Quoting from the analysis:

"Everybody Loves Raymond (a show about watching grouchy middle-aged people fighting each other when they were not fighting with even grouchier old people)"

I don't believe that Debra, Raymond, and Robert were "middle-aged," they were younger than that, with very young children. I think that statement is misleading. The writer seems to think that anyone past age 29 is "middle-aged"...!

[stevea]

I agree; shows like ELR and King of Queens, later Two and a Half Men aren't old-people shows. However shows like JAG and NCIS are geared to the older set, I think.

[Charles Knox]

Ray Ramono was either 38 or 39 back when the show first started in 96.

[Alan Brady's Hair]

Most of this stuff is marketing driven. The other networks would rather attack CBS as a whole, rather than have to do it show-by-by. Critics and reporters are willing accomplices, because they want to imagine there's a cutting edge that they're part of. The dopier part of the audience just laps it up. The same thing goes on today, except anything with recorded laughter in it is the supposed villain.

[Charles Knox]

Originally Posted by stevea

I agree; shows like ELR and King of Queens, later Two and a Half Men aren't old-people shows. However shows like JAG and NCIS are geared to the older set, I think.

Don't forget Walker, Texas Ranger. I know a lot of older women have been watching the CBS shows since the 60's, because of the seasoned male leads.

Shows such as Perry Mason, Gunsmoke, Mannix, Cannon, Hawaii 5-0, Magnum P.I, Murder She Wrote, Walker, JAG, Dr Quinn, NCIS and etc just naturally come with and older audience built in.

[FHCastmember]

CBS always sucked

[Hawkee]

In my eyes the reason why people thought CBS was geared to the audience of 55 to 70 was because CBS had programming that was fit to attract that audience in the 80's and 90's. And with shows like Knots Landing Murder She Wrote Magnum PI CBS knew that the senior audience loved these shows and it was a huge hit. But also the daytime hour of CBS is also a hit with seniors because as many of you know seniors LOVE game shows and that's why The Price Is Right and Let's Make A Deal get high ratings but I think when reality shows Survivor The Amazing Race and Big Brother came out in the 2000's CBS saw an age difference jumping from 55 and older to 20-30 because reality shows were beginning to be a fad with the new generation and CBS knew that they had to develop shows that appealed to that age group and so that's why the CSI franchise became a hit and we saw more sitcoms and dramas appealing to the new generation. And as CBS continues developing more sitcoms and dramas for the new generation they will become number one in TV networks

[TSMIV]

CBS was always willing to give a show more time to find an audience. The other networks have always been quick with the cancellation ax. Veteran TV watchers (aka older people) know this so they gravitate towards CBS programming.

[stevea]

Originally Posted by Charles Knox

Don't forget Walker, Texas Ranger. I know a lot of older women have been watching the CBS shows since the 60's, because of the seasoned male leads.

Shows such as Perry Mason, Gunsmoke, Mannix, Cannon, Hawaii 5-0, Magnum P.I, Murder She Wrote, Walker, JAG, Dr Quinn, NCIS and etc just naturally come with and older audience built in.

I think my mother, when she was in her 90s, watched NCIS due to Mark Harmon. And she watched most of those other shows, too.

[TMC]

I was reading this review Family of Cops, which was the first of a series of made-for-TV movies in the '90s for CBS starring Charles Bronson. It was basically, Blue Bloods before Blue Bloods to put things into perspective. This part of the review really stood out for me:

FAMILY OF COPS is a perfect example of what I would refer to as entertainment for the “older person crowd,” and I don’t mean this as a put-down in any way as I enjoyed the movie. I just mean that it fits a type of entertainment that was popular in the 80’s and 90’s. These types of shows would depend greatly on the charisma or reputation of a veteran actor or actress, would contain simple production values, and would usually follow formulaic plots. Examples of the types of shows I’m referring to include MURDER, SHE WROTE with Angela Lansbury, MATLOCK with Andy Griffith, DIAGNOSIS MURDER with Dick Van Dyke, and WALKER: TEXAS RANGER with Chuck Norris. A combination of my dad, mom and grandma loved all of these shows. I’m a big fan of MATLOCK myself. In this case, FAMILY OF COPS leans heavily on Charles Bronson’s five decades as a tough guy icon to anchor a somewhat formulaic crime film and family melodrama. The role of Paul Fein fits a 73-year-old Bronson like a glove. He’s still in good physical shape, and the movie gives him a couple of opportunities to punch the **** out of some much younger thugs and henchmen. That was fun for me.

[icecream]

Really stupid promotions like the colonoscopy sweepstakes doesn't help the old image of CBS. I think they stopped that nonsense when Paramount took over.