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Part of a series that takes an analytical look at the current broadcast pilot season and some of its trends and heroes.
Maybe it’s the Tom Selleck/Kathy Bates effect, but the broadcast networks seem more open than ever to shows fronted by older leads this pilot season. Until recently, actors in their 60s and late 50s were relegated to supporting parts as parents or grandparents of TV shows’ main characters. Now they’re the main attraction. Michael Patrick King’s NBC drama pilot A Mann’s World stars 62-year-old Don Johnson. CBS’ pilot The Doctor is toplined by 61-year-old Christine Lahti. ABC has an untitled comedy pilot written for and starring 57-year-old Tim Allen. And ABC’s drama pilot Grace is headlined by 55-year-old Eric Roberts.
The trend started last year with several pilots going older with their leads than the characters had been originally written. Blue Bloods (then Reagan’s Law) whose lead was supposed to be 50-59 year-old, cast 66-year-old Tom Selleck. David E. Kelley’s Harry’s Law (then Kindreds) was written for a male lead aged 53-57. It ended up casting 62-year-old Oscar winner Kathy Bates and tweaking the character. The most dramatic “aging up” in the casting process happened on the ABC procedural Body of Proof (then Body of Evidence) whose lead Megan was conceived as 35-40 years-old. The producers met several actresses in that age range before they thought of Dana Delany (55) who was eventually cast in the role. Additionally, CBS last summer replaced departing CSI:NY star Melina Kanakaredes, 43, with 54-year-old Sela Ward.
All 5 pilots headlined by 50something or 60something stars last season, Blue Bloods, Harry’s Law, Body of Proof as well as CBS’ $#*! My Dad Says starring 69-year-old William Shatner and NBC’s Outlaw toplined by Jimmy Smits, went to series. There was trepidation. “We know it’s going to be tough sledding,” Kelley said about the prospects of Harry’s Law at TCA in January. “I mean, for one thing, we have a 60-year-old lead. Not many networks said to me, ‘Hey, give me a show with a 60-year-old lead. I have to believe that even given the 500-channel universe, there’s room in the TV landscape for one or two or three shows that can have an older lead and indulge topical content.” Both Blue Bloods and Harry’s Law have exceeded ratings expectation, drawing massive audiences and logging very respectable 18-49 numbers for their time slots/lead-ins. ($#*! had a strong start too before losing steam in the second half of the season.) Meanwhile, ABC is putting a lot of marketing muscle behind the upcoming Body of Proof, which is the network’s best and only hope for a breakout new drama series this season.
Is it a question of acting chops, charisma and star power, something some of the older actors have in spades? Or the broadcast networks are looking to relive their glory days with some of their signature stars of the past (Allen, Johnson and Lahti are all returning to the networks where they became household names with hits Home Improvement, Miami Vice and Chicago Hope, respectively.) Or the baby boomers are turning out in droves to support shows fronted by actors of their generation? Or maybe the broadcast networks are simply taking a page out of the cable playbook. HBO’s biggest new show, Boardwalk Empire, stars the 53-year-old Steve Buscemi. And the biggest comedy star on TV at the moment, broadcast or cable, is Hot in Cleveland‘s Betty White, 89.
TV Editor Nellie Andreeva - tip her here.
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Don’t forget Dana Delany in Body of Proof
I know from experience that actors hate reading for Jeff Greenberg.
Jeff Greenberg is the meanest casting director to audition for in town and always has been. This is going back to his earliest days. He’s talented but very cruel and disrespectful.
The producers who hire him don’t know it or simply don’t care. I think it’s the former.
We laugh every time she comes on screen for one of those series promos trying to play sexy…
Reminds me of that film EXIT TO EDEN she was soooooo glorious in.
I apologize. I see you have mentioned Body of Proof. Anyway, I think casting older people in roles will mean more total viewers. NBC really needs to have more actors who look like the Law & Order cast.
Men of a certain age outnumber women 10-1 in casting. There might be one woman over 40 to eight guys. And all the other women are YOUNGER. And there are more lead male roles than female on every single show except Hot In Cleveland. It’s still about the OLD GUY getting the 15 years younger woman.
Interesting how no women over 45 work in any of these hospitals or police headquarters. It’s not just age discrimination to get the job as an actor, there’s age discrimination where they fictionally work on TV!
Boardwalk Empire has all actresses in their 20′s or early 30′s. Paz de la Huerta, Kelly McDonald, Gretchen Mol and Alexa Palladino are young. No women over 35 are recurring or regulars on that show that this viewer has noticed. The cast has to be 90% men.
Nurse Jackie has women over 40 and an abundance of female speaking roles.
Gretchen Mol is 38…
“Blue Bloods and Harry’s Law have exceeded ratings expectation, both drawing massive audiences and logging very respectable 18-49 numbers.”
Below 2.0 is very respectable these days?
Yes it is. They have massive audiences and one of those shows is on Fridays.
Yeah, but…TelevisionByTheNumbers.com (this site’s sister site) has *neither* Blue Bloods or Harry’s Law as a sure thing for renewal (both are more or less on the bubble, with BB having longer odds of being renewed).
Another point – since about 60% of the TV audience is not in the 18-49 range, lower CPM rates are paid for commercials/shows reaching this easier-to-reach audience.
Bottom line -> older skewing show = lower pay for commercials = less money for network = fewer older skewing shows…
TV By The Numbers is, by and large, full of crap and the people who write for it couldn’t find their asses in the dark with both hands, television ratings-wise. What they don’t know about TV, ratings and how TV actually works from a business perspective would fill the NY Public Library. Use them for a source for ratings data and little else.
Robert Carlyle should have been cast as Edgar Allan Poe instead of Chris Egan.
I would love to see Suzanne somers return to tv sitcoms.
You’re alone on that. She’s unbearable…
the people you mentioned in your blogpost have no chance of becoming leads in movies anymore. tv is where they go to have a second life.
Does this mean that Lawrence Fishburne(CSI), Forrest Whitaker(CM:SB), Tim Rooth(Lie To Me) and many other movies actors doing TV cannot get the lead in movies anymore?
No. Only those “has been” actors mentioned in Nellie’s report.
Why are they “has beens?” They are talented actors who are working. Isn’t everyone tired of throwing the Schedenfreude around so freely? I’d rather support and applaud anyone in this business who is still working whether in front of or behind the camera.
It means that they, among many others (Laura Linney, Oliver Platt, Gary Sinese, and on and on), quite possibly prefer having a regular paycheck, and not having to travel the world to earn it. Why you felt moved to say such a negative and unenlightened thing is a question that hangs in the air.
linney, platt, sinise plus younger ones like kat dennings and zooey deschanel are ahead of the curve. We will see more american actors migrating to tv next year and more british actors replacing them and doing american movies.
Oh, and the american film industry will be dead in 10 years.
bitter, party of one?
Tim Allen is blonde now?!
Does this mean writers over 40 can get a job?
Um…might the fact the only people who consistently still watch TV and HAVE MONEY are baby boomers? My 73 year old mother actually emailed me to ask if watch BLUE BLOODS which she loves and reminds her of HILL STREET BLUES and her then crush on Daniel J. Travante.
Sorry to ick everyone out, with the image of my mom getting to moist to “Frank Furillo” but I thought it was worth mentioning.
I just think it’s awesome your mom still emails..lol Blue Bloods and Harry’s Law are our favorite shows and we’re not grandparents or geezers by the way. And Body of Proof looks like it will be excellent too.
I just turned 50, and have a quarter-century of work years ahead of me. I also make major purchases, just like I did last year at 49–the cutoff for relevancy, apparently.
The one show I have not missed since it premiered is HARRY’S LAW. It’s on at a good time for me, and I love the show and the cast.
It’s about time TV execs remembered what has worked for them in the past (Golden Girls, MTM, All in the Family, Bob Newhart, Carol Burnett…shows that most certainly would not be considered “young skewing” in terms of their stars, but enjoyed MASSIVE and enduring popularity.).
At least she didn’t paste it on my facebook wall…
haha. Your mom is awesome. Get her on Facebook. Tell her Blue Bloods has a page…but then she sounds cool and probably already knows. lol
The whole problem is that the idea of what an “old” person is, is stuck in an earlier paradigm. Of course, a 73 year old woman emails, the public Internet has been around since the early 90s. Do the math–she probably learned to email when she was in the workforce–in fact, she may still be in the workforce. It’s well past time that advertisers and networks realized that people over 49–and yeah, even people over 70–are still active and have money.
Also, just as a technical FYI, at 73, she’s not a a boomer, since she was born before WWII.
Tom Selleck would be an awesome Big Bad for Dexter…he needs to do better gigs.
Amen to that.
Not surprising that broadcast media needs to go for older viewers with aging stars, since younger audiences see tv as a mildly amusing, curious antique from another century.
U.S. demographics are aging. Increasingly, the problem will become that there are not enough young people to justify programming that caters strictly to them. I think the present crop of older actors is likely just one of Hollywood’s yearly fads. Next, year, it will be something else. But, I also think that programming for older viewing audience is inevitable.
Not to mention that the median age for the broadcast nets is either pushing 50 or just over it. So, if they’re programming exclusively for A18-49, they’re missing over half their audience.
Good luck with that.
The entire cast of LOGJAMMERS is at least 50 plus except for the role of Jake Fullblown.
I thought the frank discussion about incontinence was sort of ironic in a project called LOGJAMMERS.
we’re gonna have a sit down soon…
They are called Baby Boomers and they are the largest demographic in the USA.
That’s why the nets want them as viewers.
The fight is on!
Nice to see some 50 and over, so many good actors have been sitting on the sidelines. But I’ve noticed the 30 to 45 group cast in pilots seems to be heavily British and Australian.
Happy to see older actors back on TV. So many new shows have been geared towards the younger generation without much success, the cape, the event, My generation, Undercover, Off the map, to name a few. Glad to see shows like Harry’s Law, Blue Blood having some success.
With so many entertainment options available now to the public, trying to focus only on the younger audience is a sure way to grab very few viewers. Shows like Glee or Modern Family may be demo winners but they get half the audience that NCIS gets.
Advertisers wanna make money. They don’t care about total viewers unless it somehow results in making that money and baby boomers are much less likely to change brand loyalty. Glee gets younger viewers who pull an ‘oh that looks cool, I need to try that’ at the drop of a hat, and it helps the struggling music industry on top of it. They not only sell records, but they cause a bump for the artist whose song they cover. It’s a cash cow.
NCIS needs more viewers to make up for the fact that so many of them drink the same coffee brand they drank 15 year ago and think you “twit” instead of “tweet.”
The correct word is “twat”.
This whole laughable notion of “brand loyalty” is nonsense. You think just because I bought a Chevy 5 years ago, I won’t consider a Nissan for my next purchase?
You think just because I ate at McDonald’s yesterday, I won’t eat at Subway tomorrow? Just because I bought Charmin today, I won’t buy Depends tomorrow? Just because I have Verizon service today, I won’t switch to Revol if it’s cheaper or offers more?
Come ON. Wake up, and realize these antiquated theories are cuckoo. Advertise your products, sell me on it, and I’ll buy it. We’re not living in farm days, where you had to buy Mr. Smith’s milk or go thirsty.
Boomers have actually demonstrated higher willingness to change brands than any other age demographic. And they’re watching more traditional television (sans DVR) than any other age group. And they have the most disposable wealth of any age bracket (70% of US assets, spending $2.3 trillion annually which exceeds 18-39 households by more than 50%). And they’re not like their senior predecessors -they think they’re young and they spend money like they’re young. This has been all over WSJ, NYT, eMarketer, The Atlantic, etc in the past few weeks/months.
Ha! Talk about out-dated thinking! No one’s ever proven that people don’t switch brands past a certain age, it’s just a stupid “rule” that gets passed down from one generation of marketers to the next. Meanwhile, their own work contradicts it, since they’re constantly getting consumers-at whatever age–to try new things.
It’s merely a reflection of the audience that still knows who the broadcast networks are and feel any kind of loyalty to them. The networks want to believe they’re still chasing 18-34 year olds when, in fact, their audience is really 35-65. Most viewers under 30 have no idea what the difference is between a broadcast network and a cable channel. They’re all just numbers on the cable box.
They have no network loyalty because the networks didn’t cultivate it and surrendered the youth audience years ago to Nick and Disney. Now they are in their 20′s and know ABC Family, but have no idea who ABC is.
I see the above “below a 2.0 is success” Well, remember it depends on the timeslot and expectations.
Blue Bloods pulling in a 1.9 on a Friday night IS success. The only other show pulling those numbers on a Friday right now is “Supernatural” with Fringe floating around the 1.5 marker, and even it’s in the loop for consideration of renewal. Blue Bloods has a much larger older demographic which, while not worth nearly as much, helps support it’s numbers.
Harry’s Law on NBC has been a major lift in a dead timeslot. It’s a 40% bump over Leno last year; and it comes up from the absolute crater that was “The Cape” which held on with about a 1.3/1.4 ratings and climbed UP in the 10PM slot. NBC hasn’t had a drama that grew on its lead in in a monday slot in a very long time.
The networks are revising their expectations for the 10PM slot, a slot that Fox never competed in and has been a wasteland for a while. It’s why NBC tried Leno in that slot. But a 2.0 or near with good overall numbers is OK, on a Friday, it’s better then OK
There is no bigger TV star than Mark Harmon. No nicer one either. He is the anti-Charlie Sheen.
You’re right on this one; Harmon is an absolute class act. A real rarity in how he treats people around him. A lot of people could take lessons from him – complete class act.
Roger that. A gentleman.
But – look to movies. For every underperforming Beastly or RRH you have Unknown, True Grit, The King’s Speech – past weekend Aaron Eckhart (40+) beat out Amanda Seyfried.
TV needs some texture that only seasoned actors can give it – every actor under 30 looks like every other actor under 30 these days. The younger stuff is just so Stepford.
Completely right on this one. He’s the exception.
LOGJAMMERS has got be pretty pissed about missing out on Tim Allen. Also, like DMan, I’m really excited about Harry’s Law!
and whatabout Skins? i know alot of 20somethings watching it. its not just 40-50somethings watching tv folks. if the right shows get made any group will watch.
I also believe it is not just ageism, which is a trend on television, that needs to change. It is also the plots and/or topics currently in vogue that need to change.
Vampires, animated characters, and lame sit-coms, with the exception of “Hot in Cleveland” are not going to appeal to the baby-boomer generation. And the younger generation will not be satified without more and more “special effects” Their short attention apan can only be satisfied through video games.
So it is gratifying to see experienced, favourite actors coming back on our televisions. Welcome back; we have missed you!
I don’t speak for all viewers, but I certainly appreciate seeing older and more experienced actors fronting more shows these days. No offense to the younger stars, or to any of their fans, but they simply don’t have the emotional gravitas it takes to anchor an entire show OR import even the smallest scene with dramatic heft and integrity.
Kristin Bell is a great actress. Watch her on Deadwood.
I so agree about the “oldies” coming back to the screen/tv, doesn’t matter, these are the people that play it “as it is” There are a number of movie stars I would love to see
Susan Sarandon, will always have that truly female allure, love her to bits, she can handle any part in a movie/tv, Mark Harmon in NCIS, still looks amazing !!! Tom Sellek (execuse me if I have spelt any of the stars names incorrectly, just so excited to hear these stars are again back where they should be / belong)
Eric Robers, he is such a versatile actor, how come he has not been in more movies???? Don’t see Antonia Banderas in any latest movies any more, and that man just sizzles sex appeal. Sean Connery, say no more, he just looks better with age and is such a natural.
Michael Cain, James Corbin, Joan Collins, where is she these days, what an actress. Sher, for a singer, she can act as well.
The best is Al Pacino, Andy Garcia and Robert de Nero, wow man these guys can rock !!!! Michael Douglas obviously has papa’s genes, wow !!! Don Johnson was always good. What happened to “Face” in the A Team, sure he could go into acting as well.
Sorry got carried away
No offense, but enough with recycled old actors, we need fresh, young actors to bring on the eyeballs of the youth that are more interested in facebook than tv. Why do you think reality tv is so popular…there aren’t any baby boomers on reality tv…Survivor mixes in a few old farts, but youth is king if tv is to survive.
The X Factor will have old people too.
Enough of your youth movement, it’s 70/30 that anything catches on with the so-called Facebook generation at all. My Generation, Scott Pilgrim, Kick-Ass, Conan’s Tonight Show. Where was that mythical hipster audience? The only thing I can think of recently that ignited the youth was Jersey Shore. Nothing at all on the big four networks. Give me a break.
Reality TV is full of 50-plus folk. You’re just not watching the shows in which they abound, like “Celebrity Apprentice” and “Dancing With the Stars.”
The average viewer for ABC, CBS ad NBC is 51. The Baby Boomers are a huge segment of the viewing population and they are all middle-aged and older, still working and have more disposable income than the generation before them at the same age. Networks are taking notice – as they should. This makes a lot of people in Hollywood very happy.
I want Allison Janney’s agent. She’s in everything!