In the opening five minutes of CBS’s “American Gothic,” a father tries to silence his mentally disturbed daughter by hitting her over the head with a shovel. The sheriff arrives–and finishes off the job by breaking the girl’s neck.
In the opening five minutes of the network’s “Courthouse,” a prisoner about to be sentenced pulls out a gun and kills the judge. Later in the show, a public defender calls a judge a name not often heard on network TV.
In the first few minutes of CBS’s “Bless This House,” the mother of the house, in front of her child, talks about a guy having sex with his girlfriend on the table. The father says the family needs a new bathroom because his girl spends all her time in the bathroom “looking at her hooters.” This in a show that will air at 7 p.m.
This isn’t exactly the old CBS. The network with the image as stodgy, with stodgy older viewers, is–if not exactly cutting edge–different this season.
Oh, the old CBS hasn’t disappeared. “Murder, She Wrote” still is on the schedule, though it’s been moved to Thursdays. “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman” is back on Saturday nights. There’s enough of the old CBS, but there’s enough of the new CBS to raise eyebrows.
“American Gothic’s” violent opening episode–edited so that we don’t see either violent act–sets the stage of a creepy, well-done show about the nature of evil.
“Courthouse,” on the other hand, is a terrible show.
“Bless This House” has moments of real charm.
But these are not shows you might have associated CBS with in the past. It’s a new era at the network, which is trying to get the median age of its viewers below 50 years old, which is where it is now. Forty-eight wouldn’t be bad.
And there’s a new regime in place. Entertainment president Leslie Moonves officially came over to the network less than two weeks ago after running Warner Bros.’ TV division. All the new shows on the network were developed by the previous management, but he says he’s sticking by the schedule.
CBS is putting on 11 new shows.
“Conventional wisdom says that may be too many, and that, in fact, may be the case,” he said.
But CBS had to do something. The first network ever to go from third to first place in one season, it also was the first to go from first to third, which happened last season. CBS’s audience is older than the other networks, and by putting on provocative programming, it hopes to get the average age of its audience down a little.
“We’re younger, but we’re not young,” said CBS head of research David Poltrack.
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The decision isn’t a capricious one. Advertisers pay a premium for audiences under the age of 50.