In Our Prime (46 page)

215
Born in 1911, Smith grew:
John S. Wright, “Leaders in Marketing: Wendell Smith,”
Journal of Marketing
30, no. 4 (October 1966): 64–65.

216
In the thirties, department stores:
Juliet Schor,
Born to Be Big: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture
(New York: Scribner, 2005), 43.

216
He argued that the strategy of selling the same item:
Wendell Smith, “Product Differentiation and Market Segmentation and Marketing as Alternative Marketing Strategies,”
Journal of Marketing
21, no. 1 (July 1956): 3–8.

216
As early as 1940:
Sarah Igo,
The Averaged American: Surveys, Citizens, and the Making of a Mass Public
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), 114, 118.

217
As the business historian:
Richard S. Tedlow,
New and Improved: The Story of Mass Marketing in America
(Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1996).

217
The spirit of youthful nonconformity:
Thomas Frank,
The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture and the Rise of Hip Consumerism
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997).

217
“The old fragmentation was based”:
Tedlow,
New and Improved.

218
“I went to Hollywood”:
Jeremy Gerard, “TV Mirrors a New Generation,”
New York Times,
October 30, 1988; Frank,
Conquest of Cool,
1.

218
The prime-time cable audience:
Susan Faludi,
Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women
(New York: Anchor Books, 1992), 147.

218
“The worse TV nets perform”:
Neal Gabler, “The Tyranny of 18 to 49: American Culture Held Hostage,” Norman Lear Center, University of Southern California, April 9, 2003, at
http://www.learcenter.org/images/event_uploads/Gabler18to49.pdf
(accessed May 21, 2011).

219
Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s:
Marc Gunther, “Turnaround Time for CBS Star-Driven Shows for Aging Boomers Should Get the Ailing Network Back on Track,”
Fortune,
August 19, 1996,
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1996/08/19/215603/index.htm
(accessed June 12, 2011). Also see: Horst Stipp, “Why Youth Rules: A Network Response,”
American Demographics,
May 1995, 30; David Lieberman and Melanie Wells, “Off Target,”
USA Today,
December 8, 1997; Christine Larsen, “Forever Young—Television Network Targeting
of Viewers by Age Group,”
Brandweek,
May 10, 1999; Jonathan Dee, “The Myth of ‘18 to 24,'”
New York Times Magazine,
October 13, 2002; Dan Ackman, “CBS Finds New Way to Slice Audience,”
Forbes,
July 22, 2003; Frank Ahrens, “Networks Debate Age Groups' Value to Advertisers,”
Washington Post,
May 21, 2004; Diane Holloway, “Networks Woo Older Viewers,” Cox News Service, September 12, 2006; Laura Blum and Steve McClellan, “Aging Baby Boomers Defy Easy Classification,”
Adweek,
September 8, 2006; “Baby Boomers Upset That TV Isn't All About Them,” AP on MSNBC, November 28, 2006,
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15806591/from/ET/
(accessed May 14, 2009).

219
The preference showed up in ad prices:
Elizabeth White, “This Sweeps, CBS Bets Older Is Better,”
Media Life,
April 27, 2001.

219
The head of sales for Fox at the time:
Gunther, “Turnaround Time for CBS,”
Fortune
.

219
In 1993–94 the median age of prime-time:
Michael Schneider, “TV Viewers Average Age Hits 50,”
Variety,
June 29, 2008.

219
A&E's Raven thinks the 20-somethings:
Abbe Raven interview with author, May 2009.

219
No one knows that better than:
David Poltrack interview with author, April 24, 2008.

220
The neglect of middle age in the movies:
Richard Maltby,
Hollywood Cinema
(New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 2003), 21–30; Robert Sklar,
Movie-Made America: A Cultural History of American Movies
(New York: Vintage, 1994), 304–5.

220
Forty percent of frequent:
“Theatrical Market Statistics,” Motion Picture Association of America, 2008.

222
The film scholar Robert Sklar:
Sklar,
Movie-Made America,
348.

222
Merry arrested development was the theme:
Barbara Ellen, “Wine, Women, Motorbikes, Bonding . . . Who Says Middle Age Is a Crisis for Men?,”
Observer,
April 15, 2007.

224
For a long time:
Doris G. Bazzini et al., “The Aging Woman in Popular Film: Underrepresented, Unattractive, Unfriendly, and Unintelligent,”
Sex Roles
36, no. 7/8 (1997).

224
The director Nancy Meyers recalled:
Nancy Griffin, “Diane Keaton Meets Both Her Matches,”
New York Times,
December 14, 2003.

225
More recently, Hope Davis, born in 1964:
Precious Williams, “Hope Davis, the Star Unrecognized by Millions,”
Times of London,
March 2, 2006.

225
As one writer suggested:
Hadley Freeman, “Oh, Mother,”
Guardian,
March 24, 2009.

225
“When I first went into”:
Official Web Site of Lillian Gish,
http://www.lilliangish.com/about/quotes.html
(accessed June 12, 2011).

226
the novelist Italo Calvino said:
Jerome Charyn,
Movieland: Hollywood and the Great American Dream Culture
(New York: New York University Press, 1996), 23.

226
A tiny clutch of privileged actresses:
Mimi Swartz, “Sunset Strip,”
Slate,
January 5, 2004,
http://www.slate.com/id/2093444/
(access June 12, 2011).

226
The available parts are still:
Nancy Signorielli, “Aging on Television: Messages Relating to Gender, Race, and Occupation in Prime Time,”
Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media
48, no. 2 (June 2004): 23; Martha M. Lauzen,
The Celluloid Ceiling: Behind-the-Scenes Employment of Women on the Top 250 Films of 2008,
2009; Anne E. Lincoln and Michael Patrick, “Double Jeopardy in Hollywood: Age and Gender in the Careers of Film Actors, 1926–1999,”
Sociological Forum
19, no. 4 (December 2004): 628; Martha Lauzen and D. M. Dozier, “Maintaining the Double Standard: Portrayals of Age and Gender in Popular Films,”
Sex Roles
52 (2005): 437–46; Margie Rochlin, “What She Really Wants to Do Is . . . ,”
New York Times,
April 13, 2008; Neil Genzlinger, “An Actress of a Certain Age Eyes the Beauty Cult,”
New York Times,
January 20, 2004; Screen Actors Guild Casting Data Report, “A Different America on Screen,”
Screen Actor
(Winter 2007): 55; Bosley Cruthers, “Romantic Middle-Aged Men and Women,”
New York Times,
September 12, 1963; Mary F. Pols, “They're Women, Directors and Few,”
Contra Costa Times,
July 8, 2007; Michelle Goldberg, “Where Are the Female Directors?,”
Salon,
August 27, 2002,
http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/feature/2002/08/27/women_directors/print.html
; Dave McNary, “Little Diversity Progress Among Writers,”
Variety,
November 17, 2009; David Robb, “Over-40 Actresses Are Losing Out,”
BackStage,
April 30, 1999.

226
During the ten years it:
Rochlin, “What She Really Wants to Do Is.”

226
Geena Davis, a glamour girl:
Rachel Syme, “Still in a League of Her Own,”
Daily Beast,
April 27, 2009,
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs
-and-stories/2009-04-27/still-in-a-league-of-her-own/?cid=tag:all (accessed April 27, 2009).

228
“Middle age is a wonderful country”:
John Updike,
Rabbit at Rest
(New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1996).

229
Clicking through slides filled with pie charts, graphs:
Slide show, “Alphaboomer,” NBC presentation, December 2010.

229
“Every seven seconds someone
”:
Sheila Shayon, “NBCU to Marketers: Respect Your Elders,”
Brandchannel,
November 5, 2010,
http://www.brandchannel.com/home/post/2010/11/05/NBCU-Touts-Alpha-Boomers.aspx
(accessed November 5, 2010).

230
ad buyers have consistently ignored any information:
Lorne Manly, “The New Middle Ages: TV's Silver Age,”
New York Times Magazine,
May 6, 2007; Diane Holloway, “TV Goes Gray,”
Austin American-Statesman,
June 28, 2007; Michael Schneider, “TV Viewers' Average Age Hits 50,”
Variety,
June 29, 2008; Bill Carter, “Young Viewers Flocking to CBS in a Season of Disappointments,”
New York Times,
November 2, 2008; Bill Carter, “New on the Networks: Safe Formulas from the Past,”
New York Times,
January 25, 2009.

230
They stopped citing brand loyalty:
Dee, “The Myth of ‘18 to 24.'”

230
Working with Hallmark Channels:
Elliot, “The Older Audience Is Looking Better Than Ever.”

230
More than half of the postwar generation:
Pew Research Center staff, “Growing Old in America.”

230
Surveys show that the young:
Pew Research Center staff,
Growing Old in America: Expectations vs. Reality,
June 29, 2009,
http://pewsocialtrends.org/2009/06/29/growing-old-in-america-expectations-vs-reality/
(accessed June 12, 2011): “Among 18- to 29-year-olds, about half say they feel their age, while about a quarter say they feel older than their age and another quarter say they feel younger. By contrast, among adults 65 and older, fully 60 percent say they feel younger than their age, compared with 32 percent who say they feel exactly their age and just 3 percent who say they feel older than their age. The gap in years between actual age and ‘felt
age' widens as people grow older. Nearly half of all survey respondents ages 50 and older say they feel at least 10 years younger than their chronological age. Among respondents ages 65 to 74, a third say they feel 10 to 19 years younger than their age, and one-in-six say they feel at least 20 years younger than their actual age.” The inability of one generation to understand another goes much further back and is the theme of a short story by Edward Bellamy, “The Old Folks' Party,”
Scribner's Monthly,
0011, no. 5 (March 1876): 660–69.

231
Forty-seven used to be the age:
“Talkin' 'Bout My Generation: The Economic Impact of Aging US Boomers,” McKinsey Global Institute, June 2008; David Welch, “Baby Boomers Curb Free-Spending Habit,”
Bloomberg Businessweek,
July 27, 2009,
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32126775/ns/business-personal_finance/
(accessed May 30, 2010).

231
This generation “has assets”:
Elliot, “The Older Audience Is Looking Better Than Ever.”

231
“What advertisers are recognizing”:
Blum and McClellan, “Aging Baby Boomers Defy Easy Classification,”
Adweek;
Brian Steinberg, “Nielsen: This Isn't Your Grandfather's Baby Boomer,”
Ad Age,
July 19, 2010.

231
“Perhaps the most constructive ways”:
Steven Weiland, “Berniece L. Neugarten,” Jewish Women's Archive, A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia,
http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/neugarten-bernice-l
.

231
Two other consulting firms that specialize:
Focalyst View Survey,
The Focalyst View,
2006; Age Wave website,
http://www.agewave.com/research/landmark_revisioningRetirement.php
(accessed June 12, 2011).

232
This doesn't mean that Madison:
Jim Gilmartin, “The Crisis of Faulty Marketing Paradigms,” MediaPost Blogs, March 7, 2011,
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=145689
(accessed June 12, 2011).

232
“We believe there is this”:
Manly, “The New Middle Ages: TV's Silver Age.”

232
In 2010, the station solicited series that:
Amy Chozick, “Television's Senior Moment,”
Wall Street Journal,
March 29, 2011,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703559604576174983272665032.html
(accessed June 12, 2011).

233
“I think the wider the”:
Bob Greenblatt interview with author, 2010.

234
This transformation is shaking
: Bill Carter and Tim Arango, “An Unsteady Future for Broadcast,”
New York Times,
November 22, 2009; Bill Carter, “New on the Networks: Safe Formulas from the Past,”
New York Times,
January 25, 2009; Carter, “Young Viewers Flocking to CBS in a Season of Disappointments”; Wilson, “Aging—Disease or Business Opportunity?”; Gilmartin, “The Crisis of Faulty Marketing Paradigms”; Jan Hoffman, “‘The Good Wife' and Its Women,”
New York Times,
April 29, 2011.