Audiences for longest-running TV shows, by network

The median age of a prime-time viewer is over 50. This year it stands at 64.6 for the five English-language broadcast networks.

Adobe Stock (2); Peter Kramer/CBS;

For decades, TV shows have lived and died by their ratings among adults 18-49, the sweet spot demographic that allows advertisers to reach a wide range of potential customers with money to spend , but without the lifelong habits of how to spend it. That’s not really the case anymore, as the emphasis on engagement and reach in the streaming era, as well as precisely targeted ads, means that demo research is even more data-driven than it wasn’t before streaming. This shift corresponds to the reality that, thanks to streaming and the relentless pull of algorithmic content apps, only a small portion of a given show’s on-air audience falls into the once-coveted demo.

The median age of a prime-time viewer is over 50. This year it stands at 64.6 for the five English-language broadcast networks. It’s about the same for cable, with networks like Bravo skewing a bit younger (their median viewer age is 56), while the average viewer for the big three news networks is about 69 years old.

Only one English-language show airing on a broadcast network this season… Bob’s Burgers on Fox – had a median age (where half of a show’s viewers were younger and half were older) below 50, and not by much: the median age of viewers of the animated series was 49.5 years old. (All numbers in this story are from May 19, three days before the end of the September-May television season.)

Fox had the lowest median age, 58.1, of the five networks, thanks in large part to its animated roster: with Bob’s Burgers, family guy (median age 51.5 years), The simpsons (51.6), The big North (52.3) and Krapopolis (52.6) make up the five youngest prime-time shows this season.

On the other end of the spectrum, CBS’ Blue blood had the oldest median viewer of any primetime series, at 73, as well as 11 other shows with a median viewer over 70. Given this, it’s no surprise that CBS has the oldest primetime audience among broadcasters, with a median age of 67.8. , more than two years older than ABC (65.5). NBC (64.9) is a bit younger than CW, once a youth hunter (65.2). . (ABC’s average does not include its Monday Night Football TV shows, which would probably lower the median age a bit.)

CBS also has the largest primetime audience, and thanks in part to that bigger tent, it also had the two highest-rated shows among adults 18-49 this season, not counting live sports , in Survivor (1.37 million viewers in this age group) and Tracker (1.32 million). (No surprise: The No. 1 show in virtually every demographic in 2023-24, from kids to people over 50 and among men and women of all ages, was NBC’s show. Sunday Night Football.)

Nielsen linear ratings do not include streaming. If they did, those median age numbers would decline somewhat, as streaming viewers tend to be an entire generation younger than viewers of the same program on air. Abbott Elementary SchoolThe median viewer of ABC on ABC is about 61 years old; for streaming, the median age of viewers is 36. Law & Order: SVUStreaming viewers are on average about 20 years younger than the median age of 64.8 for those watching on NBC. And so on.

Streaming of network scripted series can account for 40% or more of a show’s audience over seven days. ABC can note that Abbott regularly triples or quadruples its rating from 18 to 49 after a few days of multiplatform viewing, and CBS isn’t shy about rating it either. Tracker (with a linear median age of 68.7) reaches approximately 19 million viewers over a longer five-week measurement of all views.

This story first appeared in the May 29 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.