Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe LOS ANGELES, March 20 (UPI) -- The recent flap about David Letterman's possible plans (now aborted) to leave CBS for ABC has thrown venerable news people like Barbara Walters into a tizzy. What is the world coming to, goes the conventional media wisdom, when a smirking wiseacre like Letterman might rudely shove aside a serious news show like Ted Koppel's "Nightline." Advertisement But younger viewers have been shoving aside TV news for some time now. My friend and neighbor Ken Layne put it best in a March 12 Foxnews.com column that began, "When ABC offered David Letterman its late-night slot, the Journalistic Gatekeepers fouled their Depends." "I spend most of the workday checking news sites, only turning on the satellite teevee when something big is going down," wrote Layne, who's in his 30s. Advertisement "I read the papers in the morning, but generally skip the front page because I already saw all that on the Web," Layne continued. "With the BBC, NPR and several good local stations in Los Angeles, I use the radio for breaking news -- especially if I'm sitting in the drive-thru waiting for hamburger ... And when it's late, I turn to Letterman for smart, goofy jokes about it all." I don't normally watch TV news either, because when I do I can practically feel myself getting stupider. I don't care how smart and serious Ted Koppel is, watching him Explain It All is inherently an exercise in passivity and I'm just too constitutionally antsy. Also, TV news is often an object lesson in how a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. I remember getting into an argument with a friend about a topic that had been in the news at the time: Asian-American students were protesting that quotas were keeping them out of universities. "No, but that's fair," said my friend. "Because it's a brain drain. They get educated here, and then they just go back to Japan." "But..." "It's true," she said firmly. "I saw it on the news." Advertisement This is what happens, I thought sourly, when people get their information in pre-digested pap form from TV, so often watched by those who are distracted by something else. Maybe my friend was putting on her mascara in the next room or something and got confused. Because I'd like to think that even on TV they wouldn't purposely jumble foreign students and American students (of whatever ethnicity.) Except that presenting information out of context, combining superficially similar things in specious and misleading ways -- this actually seems to be a specialty of TV news, an inane whirlwind of murder, Monica interviews, and lotto results. Still, "Nightline" is serious network news, not local tabloid mayhem. Also, as an ABC producer told Time magazine last week, "'Nightline' beats Letterman in the ratings, has beaten him every night since this came out." This is true, and it's also true that "Nightline"'s older viewers, being older, have more money to spend on whatever advertisers might care to sell them. So why are the networks so ruthless about dumping their moneyed, aging viewers in favor of that elusive 18-to-34-year-old youth demographic? The hard, counterintuitive fact about TV is that even though younger viewers have less to spend, they're willing to spend what they have. Maybe not on minivans. But certainly on fast food, beer, acne treatments, cheap clothes and just-opened movies. Advertisement Last year, for instance, CBS president Les Moonves pooh-poohed any suggestion that the distaste some big advertisers had for the vulgar hijinks on "Big Brother" was a problem. "Procter and Gamble doesn't want to be on 'Big Brother' and that's OK," Moonves said. "We're getting a lot more movie money than we ever did before, because we've got 18-to-34-year-olds on that show." The constant catering to youth is also driving the increasing foul language and general vulgarity of network TV. Steven Bochco got some flak from TV critics last year when his new show, "Philly," premiered on ABC, complete with dialogue that included the words "bullshit" and "tits." "I just don't think that a word every 10-year-old hears in the schoolyard now should be that big of an issue," Bochco said. "We have to be reactive. You can't stick your head in the sand." The subtext in that statement is that Bochco wants younger viewers and is willing to pander to them. He may not want them quite as young as 10, but he'd rather they be closer in years to the schoolyard than the senior citizen discount. Younger viewers are prized not because they watch more TV (or have more money in their pockets) than their elders, but because they watch less, even though they have less. Advertisement It takes a minute to understand this paradox, but basically it works like this: Older people, methodically circling their favored TV listings each week, watch an hour more TV per day than the core target demographic of 18-to-49-year-olds -- who in turn watch an hour more than the 12-to-17-year-old group, despite the conventional wisdom about boob-tube-addicted teenagers. Viewers 50 and older, the thinking goes, are going to stay in and watch TV anyway. "They also read, listen to the radio, watch CNN," TV writer-producer Rob Long told me. "Older people tend to be interested in the world around them. "Young people spend most of their time listening to music and masturbating." A set of easily distracted young eyeballs glued to a TV is a rare and valuable prize. Eyeballs that have been around for more than 49 years (i.e.: the "Nightline" set) aren't anymore. It's Generation X, Y and Z who turn the Taco Bell Chihuahua or the " Dude, you're getting' a Dell" guy into pop culture icons. These viewers are willing to try new brands. As a network executive explained a few years ago to veteran TV producer Diane English, creator of yesterday's CBS hit, "Murphy Brown," "kids haven't chosen their toothpaste for life." Advertisement CBS may be keeping fratboy favorite David Letterman, but in general it's known as the geriatric network. It's also, not coincidentally, known as the least edgy network. Craig Kilborn of CBS's "Late Late Show" observed at a news conference that his writers sometimes complain that NBC's "Saturday Night Live" gets away with things they can't. "And I say, well, this is different. This is CBS," Kilborn explained. "I think the executives would have you believe that on Madison Avenue, they like young males 18 to 34, they spend all the money," Kilborn noted. "But I pride myself, ever since I was at ESPN, in having people of all ages enjoying the show and laughing." "I like to say that every year I should offend somebody where I have to apologize," Kilborn added. "And my dad thinks it should be every six months because he likes me to be edgy." That's cute. But Kilborn's dad isn't exactly who network executives are catering to these days. You can see why Moonves was happy to get that movie money "Big Brother" brought in. Solid CBS ratings winners like "Becker" and "Touched by an Angel" aren't watched by the teenaged boys who make or break a new film's opening weekend. Neither is "Nightline" on ABC. Advertisement So even though youth hits like Fox's "Dark Angel" or the WB's "Gilmore Girls" have far less viewers than Grandma's favorites, they can be more profitable in terms of advertising revenue. All this may seem unfair, but that's how the TV business works. And there are those on the losing side of it all who take it with a grain of salt anyway. Richard Dreyfus, who plays the cranky old hero of CBS's "The Education of Max Bickford," was asked about ageism in TV. "I think it's a little graceless for people to complain about ageism when they're older, and not when they're 25," he responded.
