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The median audience age of the 10 biggest TV shows signals how few young people are tuning in

Carrie Wittmer   

The median audience age of the 10 biggest TV shows signals how few young people are tuning in
Entertainment1 min read

The Good Doctor

ABC

The biggest shows on networks are increasingly drawing in older viewers, which is a challenge for brands that want to reach out to young people.

The New York Times published a report Monday called "Why Traditional TV is in Trouble."

The article describes how networks are in trouble due to the decline in ratings, especially among young people, many of whom don't even own TVs or watch anything live.

The article includes data from Nielsen showing the median age of viewers of the 10 most popular shows on TV in the 2017-2018 season. They range from late 50s to late 40s.

"This season's top-rated show, the revival of 'Roseanne,' has a median viewer age of 52.9 years," the Times wrote. "The network show with the lowest median age is 'Riverdale' on the CW, at 37.2."

With young people using devices other than a TV to watch TV- often going straight to streaming services like Netflix and Hulu for content- the networks have a limited live audience which hampers the reach for potential advertisers.

Here, we listed the top ten shows of the 2017-2018 season along with their median age and Rotten Tomatoes score:

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