TCA Surprise: ABC is Looking for Older Viewers (for Its Freshman Drama "Nashville") - Ed Martin Live

Pasadena CA There was nothing wrong with ABC39s very busy and productive opening day at the Winter 2013 Television Critics Association tour that a panel for its struggling freshman drama quotNashvillequot wouldn39t have fixed Not that there weren39t plenty of panels for new and returning network series along with very welcome sessions for the popular ABC Family shows quotBunheadsquot and quotPretty Little Liarsquot the latter arguably a bigger and more important series than many of the scripted shows supported not only by ABC but by the other broadcast networks throughout the tourBut quotNashvillequot is something special according to many if not all of the critics at the tour And it is the only one of the three new hour dramas introduced last fall by ABC that has not been cancelled A panel with the primary cast members would have been met with outsize enthusiasm amp8211 in fact series star Connie Britton could have taken the stage by herself and enjoyed a spectacularly successful session such is the fondness this group has for her after five seasons of quotFriday Night Lightsquot an alltime TCA favoriteIndeed a panel for quotNashvillequot might have corrected what appears to be a misunderstanding in the press about the relative strength of the show From where we sit ratings for quotNashvillequot which was widely thought to be the best pilot and most promising new series of the fall season have been decidedly unremarkable But ABC Entertainment Group President Paul Lee said otherwise during his session yesterday morningAfter admitting to being disappointed that there were no big breakout hits on any of the broadcast networks and that while the network has a lot to quotshout aboutquot it also quothas a lot to doquot he said ABC is quotthrilled to see some strong Millennial numbers for quotNashvillequot quotMillennialquot is mediaspeak for today39s teenagers and young twentysomethings Lee was enthusiastic about how quotNashvillequot is performing in the 1834 demographic but said quotwe really want to build those 3549 numbers as we go through the season You39ll see us doing that as we support that showquotLee later noted that of the three dramas ABC introduced a few months ago quotWe felt that 39Nashville39 in the end made the real connection to the audience That39s not to say that I wasn39t immensely proud of 39Last Resort39 and 39666 Park Avenue39 But it wasn39t a surprise to us that 39Nashville39 was the one that really clicked particularly with our younger audience I think it was No 1 in young women 1834quotOne critic offered a gentle reality check noting that quotNashvillequot had a relatively modest rating for its return from midseason hiatus earlier this week quotYou could qualify it as a success but are you disappointed it39s not doing a bigger numberquot the critic asked quotHow do you get that number higherquotquotThere may have been a barrier to entryquot for the older folks Lee said quotIt may be for that audience country in itself was more difficult to get intoquotSo our strategy is exactly thatquot he continued quotWe know we have the young trendsetters and they are loving that show and we want to use that We want to use exposure on multiple platforms and the ability to continue to promote and sustain which I think ABC didn39t do particularly well in the past We actually learned from CBS how to sustain shows So we39re going to sustain this one and start to persuade our audience that it39s great That in itself is going to help us to bring the older audiences in to realize this is a great show It has its own distinctive voice and we think it can do much betterquotIncidentally Lee39s remarks marked the first time in recent memory that a broadcast executive has bemoaned his or her network39s failure to attract old people to anything on its scheduleAs Lee39s session continued he also admitted that it was disappointing not to see the quotAllStarsquot edition of quotDancing with the Starsquot do as strongly as he would have liked Maybe that was because the returning stars were too talented overall quotIt turns out people like to see bad dancing as much as they do good dancing but we believe passionately in that franchisequot he said quotWe39re certainly going to be casting that in the normal way and supporting it as we go through the spring cyclequotLee said he39s very pleased with ABC39s renewed performance on Friday a night the network easily owned for many years quotI set the target of trying to get family comedy on Friday nightsquot he recalled quotWe feel we39ve made a great first step on that39Shark Tank39 is a great show for us so our Fridays are real strong And I was thrilled to see 39Reba39 and 39Last Man Standing39 do so well therequotNobody predicted when we put quotShark Tankquot on that it would be a family show and that audiences would sit around with their kids love it And they did So we thought this is a great way to bring that audience together and to go back to frankly what is one of the great heritages of ABC I39ve always loved that heritage of ABC and we39ve done a very very strong start for thatquot

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TCA Surprise: ABC is Looking for Older Viewers (for Its Freshman Drama "Nashville") - Ed Martin Live

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