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

Pasadena, CA -- There was nothing wrong with ABC's very busy and productive opening day at the Winter 2013 Television Critics Association tour that a panel for its struggling freshman drama "Nashville" wouldn't have fixed. Not that there weren't plenty of panels for new and returning network series, along with very welcome sessions for the popular ABC Family shows "Bunheads" and "Pretty Little Liars," 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 tour.

But "Nashville" is something special, according to many if not all of the critics at the tour. And it isthe 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 – 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 "Friday Night Lights," an all-time TCA favorite.

Indeed, a panel for "Nashville" 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 "Nashville," 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 morning.

After 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 "shout about," it also "has a lot to do," he said ABC is "thrilled to see some strong Millennial numbers for "Nashville." ("Millennial" is media-speak for today's teenagers and young twenty-somethings.) Lee was enthusiastic about how "Nashville" is performing in the 18-34 demographic, but said "we really want to build those 35-49 numbers as we go through the season. You'll see us doing that as we support that show."

Lee later noted that of the three dramas ABC introduced a few months ago, "We felt that 'Nashville' in the end made the real connection to the audience. That's not to say that I wasn't immensely proud of ['Last Resort' and '666 Park Avenue']. But it wasn't a surprise to us that 'Nashville' was the one that really clicked, particularly with our younger audience. I think it was No. 1 [in young women 18-34]."

One critic offered a gentle reality check, noting that "Nashville" had a relatively modest rating for its return from mid-season hiatus earlier this week. "You could qualify it as a success, but are you disappointed it's not doing a bigger number?" the critic asked. "How do you get that number higher?"

"There may have been a barrier to entry" for the older folks, Lee said. "It may be, for that audience, country in itself was more difficult to get into.

"So our strategy is exactly that," he continued. "We 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 didn't do particularly well in the past. We actually learned from CBS how to sustain shows. So we're going to sustain this one and start to persuade our audience that it's 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 better."

Incidentally, Lee's remarks marked the first time in recent memory that a broadcast executive has bemoaned his or her network's failure to attract old people to anything on its schedule.

As Lee's session continued, he also admitted that it was disappointing not to see the "All-Stars" edition of "Dancing with the Stars" do as strongly as he would have liked. Maybe that was because the returning stars were too talented overall. "It turns out people like to see bad dancing as much as they do good dancing, but we believe passionately in that franchise," he said. "We're certainly going to be casting that in the normal way and supporting it as we go through the spring cycle."

Lee said he's very pleased with ABC's renewed performance on Friday, a night the network easily owned for many years. "I set the target of trying to get family comedy on Friday nights," he recalled. "We feel we've made a great first step on that.'Shark Tank' is a great show for us, so our Fridays are real strong. And I was thrilled to see 'Reba' and 'Last Man Standing' do so well there.

"Nobody predicted when we put "Shark Tank" 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. I've always loved that heritage of ABC, and we've done a very, very strong start for that."