It’s Time for 50+ Crowd to Unite

A recent Counterpunch article by Rene Kirby lamenting the fate of her favorites TV series (“Making a Case for ‘Murder, She Wro” Calendar, Oct. 9) got me to thinking about my own dilemma regarding the fate of the quartet of films I have made on the “menopause years” of “Cagney & Lacey.” The third in this series will air on the CBS network Wednesday, with far less fanfare than usual, primarily because it doesn’t seem to fit into the more youthful (read lucrative) image the network is working so hard to project these days.

Both Cagney and Lacey have reached a certain age and, it is presumed, so has their audience. Promotion for such a show is a waste, it is reasoned, because the audience that is attracted to such stuff is undesirable to the advertisers who pay all the bills. It is their agenda, and they are entitled to it, but like Ms. Kirby, I find myself objecting to being cast aside simply because I’ve transcended another birthday milestone.

Are you also tired of being told that at 50+ years of age your viewership of a particular program doesn’t count . . . that advertisers only covet that illusive 18-to-49 demographic you used to be?

Does it boggle your mind, as a baby boomer about to reach that magic 50-year-old number, that the programs you have enjoyed will soon be canceled (if they haven’t been already) because it is presumed they will not appeal to anyone who might be 10 years younger than you?

Change your toothpaste! Change your brand of soap! Do it at least every other month, and do it arbitrarily! That’s the way to confront and defeat the Madison Avenue myth that people of a certain age are too set in their ways and will not buy new products.

It doesn’t do any good to tell them that the 50+ers have most of the money and buy most of the cars and expensive stuff that TV peddles. If you want to get them where it hurts . . . if you really want to command their attention . . . go for the jugular. And that is toothpaste and soap.

Write to advertisers and tell them you’re unhappy with the state of TV and you will get a nice letter back from some middle-management drone who will submit that they only are able to advertise on what is put on by the networks. He will probably go on to state that they themselves have nothing to say about what’s on television. Oh yeah?!

Let the sales of a popular toothpaste drop off 1 million units in one month and you’ll see how fast “Murder, She Wrote” goes back to Sunday night at 8. Let the baby boomers, and their big brothers and sisters, forswear product loyalty for a time and . . . you want “Cagney & Lacey” back? You want to see new episodes or movies based on “Quantum Leap” or “Northern Exposure”? You name it, you got it. It’s an awful lot of power you can wield if only you are willing to be arbitrary with what kind of suds you put those dishes in or what you use to shampoo your hair.

I don’t know about you, but it just might be time for a change. Meanwhile, it couldn’t hurt to watch the latest “Cagney & Lacey” special on CBS Wednesday at 9 p.m. in the usual precedent-setting numbers.