Hollywood – Veteran television star Kelsey Grammer’s new comedy doesn’t exactly fit the pedigree of Fox Broadcasting. The network’s tastes long have leaned toward the likes of lowly Al Bundy of “Married … With Children,” or Brian, the sardonic talking dog who downs martinis in Fox’s animated hit “Family Guy.”
But this fall, Fox is betting big on Grammer’s latest sitcom, “Back to You.” Comfortably familiar, the show, which debuted last week, features Grammer as an egotistical local TV news anchor who gets his comeuppance after losing his job in Los Angeles and returning to his former station in Pittsburgh.
“The edginess is gone,” said Peter Sealey, an adjunct marketing professor at the Drucker School of Management at Claremont Graduate University. “Fox started out as a niche player, but they have become very mainstream.”
“Back to You” underscores Fox’s dilemma. Should the network, part of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. media empire, cast a wide net with traditional shows and established actors that appeal to the populous crowd that flocks to Fox’s “American Idol”? Or should it be true to its roots and offer irreverent fare loved by the young viewers for which advertisers pay a premium?
Already, Fox’s whiskers are getting a little gray.
Last season, the median age of Fox’s audience was 42. Compare that with five years ago, when its median age was 35. To be sure, all the major broadcasters – ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox – are struggling to manage the median age of their audiences, at a time when their core viewers are getting older.
The other big networks have older audiences than Fox, but none has aged as quickly.
“It’s not so much that Fox has aged up but that Fox has come of age,” said Kevin Reilly, president of Fox Entertainment, who joined the company in July. “What you have is Fox truly becoming a broadcast network.”
The swift shift in demographics at Fox can be attributed to the No. 1 show on television: “American Idol.” For the past three TV seasons, the enormously popular singing contest has lifted Fox to the top of the network heap in ratings among 18-to-49-year-olds.
The program last season averaged more than 30 million viewers an episode – viewers of all ages and from all around the United States.
That’s more than twice the audience of “American Idol” during its inaugural season, in 2002. But as the show’s audience has grown, so has the age of its viewers. In the recently completed TV season, the median age of its viewership was 40, up from 32 in its first year.
Long-lasting TV programs rarely attract a younger audience, because viewers who stick with a show for several seasons age along with it.
Fox’s “24,” starring Kiefer Sutherland as a warrior against terrorism, attracted an audience with a median age of 40 when it launched in 2001. Last season’s median age: 46.
TV executives know that older audiences are more loyal and younger fans more fickle.
The trick for Fox is to figure out how to harness the power of “American Idol” without jeopardizing the network’s brash and daring image.
Fox must try to duplicate the formula that worked so well for “American Idol,” which provides something for everyone. Older viewers love the aspirational nature of the contest, as unknown singers get a shot at the big time and blossom before viewers’ eyes.
Younger audiences delight in the audacity and biting comments of judge Simon Cowell.
“That show brought millions of more customers into the store,” Reilly said.
Fox’s other recent success story has been “House.” The top-10 show about a crotchety, crippled doctor addicted to painkillers soared in the ratings after being paired with “American Idol.” The median age of viewers for “House” is 42, but the drama also is a huge draw for the young.
“House” last season was the No. 2 scripted series among 18-to-34-year-old viewers, behind ABC’s soapy “Grey’s Anatomy.” Among teenagers, it was the No. 1 scripted show.
“Here is a show with a lead actor in his mid-40s, but Dr. Greg House is a guy that youth relate to,” Liguori said. “He’s a renegade, he’s cavalier, he’s a rebel, he does things his own way.”
Attitude has been Fox’s specialty. Fox Broadcasting launched nearly 21 years ago with “The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers.” In April 1987, Fox initiated one night of prime-time programming. One of its original shows was “Married … With Children,” a comedy about chauvinistic shoe salesman Al Bundy and his lazy wife, Peg.
Within a few years, Fox cemented its edgy reputation with such shows as “In Living Color,” “Beverly Hills 90210,” “Melrose Place,” “The X-Files,” “The Simpsons,” “Ally McBeal” and “Malcolm in the Middle.” For Fox, the game changer was professional sports.
Fox paid handsomely in 1994 for TV rights to NFL games and added Major League Baseball in 1996. Those sports draw large audiences, but they tend to skew older, and that has helped drive up the median age of the network’s viewership.
The median age for the NFL football audience is 46. Postseason baseball’s viewers are a little older: 49.
Fox historically has floundered in the fourth quarter, when it airs baseball in primetime. It has struggled to find shows that will keep baseball fans tuned in during November and December. Fox is betting that “Back to You” will be a show that appeals to everyone.
Created by two successful comedy writers, Steven Levitan and Christopher Lloyd, who worked together on “Frasier,” “Back to You” has gotten praise from critics for writing and for the performances of Grammer and Patricia Heaton, a veteran of “Everybody Loves Raymond.” The familiar feel could be an advantage.
“Cutting-edge comedies really have had trouble finding an audience,” Liguori said. “But audiences are watching more comedy than they have at any other point in the history of television, they are just not watching the new comedies.”
Whether “Back to You” succeeds or fails could provide an answer to a debate within the TV industry – and Fox. Some executives say networks should have distinct personalities that are reinforced by their shows. Others argue that a good show could work on any network.
“This is a network that can do a ‘Family Guy’ and ‘House’ in the same schedule, and I’d like to believe that we can also do ‘Back to You,”‘ Reilly said. “The only challenge,” he said, “is that we keep our foot rooted in our traditional brand while we are serving this bigger camp.”
