July 23, 2006

Grey expectations - Why mature stars are making a comeback - Networks harness grey power

By Garry Williams

John Waters never seems to look older - he just looks better.

   The 57-year-old actor is currently enjoying a 12-week stint on Seven's hit medical drama All Saints, playing eccentric surgeon Mike Vlasek.

   "I was fortunate enough to be approached by the producers, who asked me to help devise the character," says Waters.

   All Saints is already Australia's top-rating local drama. And turning to a veteran like Waters will surely only enhance its position, if reports from the US about a new "grey power trend" are any indication.

   Currently, a number of hot new American shows feature actors who Frank Sinatra would describe as being in "the September of their years".

   James Wood, 59, has switched from movies to TV to play a hotshot lawyer in legal drama Shark. Former Alias star Victor Garber, 57, Cheers and Becker favourite Ted Danson, 58, and Third Rock From The Sun's John Lithgow, 60, all have new shows that are generating a big buzz in the industry.

   In Australia, All Saints is certainly not alone in signing up a "senior"
star.

   Network Ten has had a huge hit this year with Thank God You're Here, a theatre sportsstyle comedy show hosted by Shane Bourne and due to begin a second series in September.

   While there is no doubting Bourne's comic flair, the showbusiness stalwart is
56 and, in the words of programmer David Mott, "outside our usual demographic".

   Of course, shows built around older characters were the norm until the 1990s, when Friends burst on to the scene. The rise of reality shows also skewed the age of audiences downwards - a trend Ten successfully exploited.

   The network openly targeted the 16 to 39 demographic, with shows such as The OC, The Simpsons, Rove Live, Big Brother and Australian Idol.

   This niche marketing improved the station's ratings and, more importantly, attracted greater advertising revenue, turning a once perilous financial situation into a healthy and profitable going concern.

   But it seems the wheel is turning again.

   The move probably started last year with Seven's Desperate Housewives. The Marc Cherrycreated comedy-drama featured a glamour cast whose big selling point was that most of the female stars were over 40, once a no-no in Hollywood.

   According to US baby-boomer expert Ken Dychtwald, who runs a nostalgia channel similar to Australian pay-TV's TV1: "Young people may be cool and exciting, but they don't have any money."

   Dychtwald says the new "power demographic" is the group of viewers aged 40 to 59.

   Even if that is taken with a grain of salt, it is true that younger viewers are more likely to be distracted from the TV by surfing the Internet, playing video games and text-messaging than their tube-addicted parents, so it is in networks' interests to cast a wider net.

   A glance around our top-rating shows seems to confirm the "grey power"
theory.

   Bert Newton's ratings are finally on the rise for Family Feud on Nine; Hey Hey It's Saturday veteran Daryl Somers hosts Seven's enormously popular Dancing With the Stars; even Gretel Killeen, host of Ten's youth flagship Big Brother, is on the "wrong" side of 40.

   And, don't forget, the onceunfashionably old and grumpy John Woods beat wonderboy Rove McManus for the Gold Logie this year.