How Many Shows Pass the Mom Test?

A group of entertainment industry heavyweights will be in Washington Wednesday to address a Senate committee on programming and marketing practices as they pertain to children.

What I can’t help but think, however, is what executives--especially in network television--have to say about the product they offer when they talk to their mothers.

It’s a thought that came to mind last week listening to local KABC-AM (790) radio personality Al Rantel, who mentioned in passing that he uses his mother as a tracking poll for how various political strategies play with the public at large.

In similar fashion, I have relied on my mother--who does not have a deal brokered by William Morris or a script at Creative Artists Agency--as a touchstone for communicating with people who aren’t Hollywood insiders. Column ideas need to pass the “my mother” test, meaning if something in this space is so “inside baseball” her eyes glaze over, it probably won’t be of much interest to anyone else who doesn’t hold a big-time job in Century City, Beverly Hills or Burbank either.

When the issue of mothers comes up for me, then, it has less to do with purveying filth or tainting the youth of America, yada yada yada, than whether the product speaks to her in some substantive way. And for network TV executives, let’s face it, the last thing they care about these days is putting on programs that their mothers--or anyone else born before World War II ended--would possibly want to watch.

You’ve no doubt heard this before, but the ageism practiced by corporate marketers and thus TV programmers bears repeating. Networks sell advertising time based on demographics, and the emphasis is almost uniformly on those under the age of 55.

This is because older people are perceived to be more set in their buying habits, won’t be around to keep buying a product for as many years as someone age 25 might, and don’t generally have four or five people living in the house thanks to the “empty nest” syndrome, which means they don’t purchase as much of the stuff that they do buy. Older people also watch more TV, the theory goes, so advertisers reach them, in essence, by default.

Because of this cost-reward analysis--and despite all the active, Nike-wearing seniors running around out there--marketers emphasize luring young adults into the corral, roping them and holding onto them for the rest of their natural lives. As a result, the networks--pragmatic in this age of 60 channels per home--are in virtual lock step chasing that youthful audience with programs designed for them.

Even CBS, the last broadcasting outpost promoting the concept that older viewers are really just as valuable largely out of self-interest, temporarily abandoned that argument over the summer, when “Survivor” and, to a lesser degree, “Big Brother” brought oodles of 18- to 34-year-olds to a network whose estimated median viewer age last season was 53. (That compared with 45 for NBC, 43 at ABC and 34 for Fox, which has ceded its “Clearasil Network” nickname to the younger-skewing WB.)

Given that only six of CBS’ 17 returning shows have a median viewing age below 50--and the youngest, “Nash Bridges,” clocks in at 48--the network’s youth movement could be short-lived, at least until the next “Survivor” washes ashore in January. With series starring Bette Midler and Craig T. Nelson on its schedule, CBS has been citing the merits of “boomers,” or the baby boom generation, which still caps off at 54.

When you scan the dial of new program offerings for this season, the financial incentive to reach a young audience has yielded predictable results: programs replete with attractive casts to obsess over the sort of things young people usually obsess about on TV--sex, relationships and overthrowing futuristic military establishments seeking to destroy freedom fighters or biologically enhanced humans.

To be fair, many older people like some of these shows. My mother, for example, laughs at “Frasier” and loves “The Sopranos,” though I like to think our relationship is slightly healthier than the mother-son dynamic in that series. She watches “60 Minutes” (median viewing age: 59), perhaps because Mike Wallace is one of the few people in prime time older than she is. She yells answers back at the set during “Jeopardy!,” tunes in “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” enjoys the Three Tenors singing on PBS (which is, like, every other week, isn’t it?) and tries not to miss Ebert and whatever-that-new-guy’s-name-is.

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Still, she doesn’t get David Letterman’s brand of humor, probably couldn’t pick Conan O’Brien or Craig Kilborn out of a lineup, pines to this day for Johnny Carson and doesn’t exactly identify with the sensibilities of “Malcolm in the Middle,” “Dawson’s Creek” or “Norm.” And based on the mail received from folks in her general demographic, she is hardly alone.

Small wonder that Sens. John McCain (64), Joseph I. Lieberman (58) and Rep. Edward J. Markey (54) are so appalled by what they see (or, more likely, what their aides see and tell them about) on TV and in movie theaters.

Well, duh. It’s not for you. Check with your kids, or in some instances, their kids. You’re American Movie Classics types in what’s increasingly--at least on network television--an MTV world. Though broadcasters pay lip service to the literacy of that term--the idea they program for everybody--all these factors point to greater narrowcasting, and the mandate that youth must inevitably be served.

Yet while TV executives can turn to the 1st Amendment when defending themselves on Capitol Hill, what of their work can they talk about over dinner with their parents? “Mom, did we really make a mistake when Felicity cut her hair?” “Isn’t the show funnier now that we moved the guys and girl out of the pizza place?” “That Richard was one ruthless SOB, wasn’t he?” “So Dad, what did you think of that ‘FreakyLinks’ pilot?” “Have we milked the Dawson-Joey-Pacey thing too long?” “Who do you like better, the Rock or ‘Stone Cold’ Steve?”

By the way, Mom, happy belated birthday (hey, it’s cheaper than a card), and thanks for reading this stuff and providing a sounding board. Then again, you ought to have the time: It’s not like there’s much on TV for you to watch anyway.

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Brian Lowry’s column appears on Tuesdays. He can be reached by e-mail at brian.lowry@latimes.com.