Won’t somebody think of the older Australians?
Isn't it time Australian television made room for a series with some of our wonderful senior actors? Where are our Golden Girls?
- Published by David Knox
- on
- Filed under News
Next week actress Hazel Phillips makes an appearance as a contestant on Australia’s Got Talent.
Phillips O.A.M. was our first female Gold Logie winner, and appeared on such shows as Beauty & the Beast, The Mavis Bramston Show, The Barry Crocker Show, Boney, Number 96, Chopper Squad, A Country Practice and more.
Now she has to resort to a TV talent show to remind TV execs and Producers that she is still around and still has to pay the rent.
Television has a terrible bias towards the beauty of youth, because advertisers pursue the beloved 25-54 and 18-49 demographics.
When you’re older, you’ve probably passed your use-by date unless you’re a male news presenter (please, no women!).
But it’s time a producer took some of our wonderful senior performers and found a commercial vehicle for them. Where are our Golden Girls? Instead we get Winners and Losers.
A few weeks ago I attended the Foxtel launch / reunion of Prisoner. Some of those ladies had the media spellbound with their dynamite personalities and grunt: Colette Mann, Judith McGrath, Val Lehman, Fiona Spence, Carol Burns. Putting them together in a room you had to stand back for the sparks that were flying.
They have a quality so many younger actresses aspire to: character.
Recently we read that Cornelia Frances was being written out of Home & Away. We’ve reminisced as a number of reunions have celebrated cast members from The Sullivans, A Country Practice, Sons and Daughters with many of the actors, including the blokes, lamenting they are no longer needed by television’s most hungry beast.
As Today Tonight pointed out in its Hazel Phillips story this week, Betty White is lauded in the US. She is constantly working and revered for her comic timing and work ethic.
One of our most beloved sitcoms was Mother & Son, Geoffrey Atherden’s brilliantly observant take on senility, starring Ruth Cracknell -still the only female in the Logies Hall of Fame.
A year ago I asked Denise Drysdale, herself a veteran performer (and back onstage giving a Logie acceptance speech this week), which female she thought should be inducted into the Logie Hall of Fame.
Her answer: Hazel Phillips.
36 Responses
@ Charlie Kelly …..As an older person….in the ‘ignored’ demographic…..
Yes….I do like to watch older people on TV…..
And I watch a lot of TV…..whilst younger people out out clubbing…movies….sport…(watching or playing)….dining out etc…..
And I probably have more disposable income than a younger person who is paying off a car and a mortgage and a numerous credit cards…..although older folk and young people may spend on some things differently….we still consume!
And,,I am not easily persuadaded…..I have never purchased anything…because I was enticed by an ad on TV.
@ Charlie Kelly
Yep disposable income is a factor as well, but primarily it is scarcity (as you imply, younger viewers are abandoning FTA TV).
To demonstrate, I couldn’t be bothered digging demo breakdowns of Australian TV at hand, so I’ll use an American website I read frequently.
Dancing with the Stars (9pm, 61 minutes)
– 16.061 million viewers
– 10.4/15 HH
– 3.0/8 A18-49
Source: /tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2011/05/04/tuesday-final-ratings-the-voice-ncis-dancing-with-the-stars-the-biggest-loser-adjusted-up-raising-hope-traffic-light-adjusted-down/91583
Probably one of the oldest skewing shows around.
3 out of 16 million viewers are in the prime demographic, which is less than 20%, demonstrating how relatively easy it is for advertisers and networks to reach older people.
If you think about it, with shows having up to 80% of viewers as older people, the networks really are thinking about what the older Australians want to watch! (only half serious).
One of the few tv shows to have an older central character was Outrageous Fortune, and to many he was a highlight of this show. Frank Whitten was one of the gretest actors on this program and he was aged in his 60s. Matter of fact there were two characters in this age group, but it was a family dynamic so it may have been easier to fit them in. Australia tv needs to take a leaf out their book and create more characters in this age group (and not cliches) and not just focus on premiscuous teens. And yes this program was targetted toward the 18-49 age group.
David, I sincerely hope that you were not talking about any of the teenaged bimbo airheads who inhabit Summer Bay and Ramsay Street when you mentioned today’s younger actresses. If so, how insulting to real actresses!
Agree, agree, agree, agree.
However, besides Geoffrey Atherden, there ain’t that many talented writers on the Oz TV landscape.
Do old people want to watch other old people?
Like doesn’t always want to really watch like.
anyways…
Also younger people are targeted because they have more disposable income and have more actively changing lifestyles and needs. Not because they are more easily persuadable.
I think part of the problem is actually that too much of FTA tv has too old an audience. Younger people are fleeing the FTA networks in droves. Partly because they program too much for older people. I’m in my Mid to late 20s, literally based on all my my friends and everyone I know. None of our favorite shows are on the main FTA channels, most not even on the other digital ones.
The idea the FTA channels program too much for younger people is ridiculous. More and more the programming is designed for those who sit and watch anything… looking at you old people…. or for people to walk in the room turn on and be up to speed with 20 to 1 or whatever.
As someone in the main demographic… FTA tv doesn’t program for me or my peers at all. The extra digital channels are getting better at it though.
I also saw the TT story on Hazel Phillips (which has since been picked up by today’s Herald Sun) and I was actually surprised she still gave a great performance despite her age.
@ Blindowl
Put simply, it’s cheaper to advertise to older people because they are easier to reach relative to younger people (with their facespaces and mybooks). The inverse is also true.
The reason for the younger demographic targets is due to scarcity of reach coupled with the belief that younger people are more easily persuadable by advertisers than older people – i.e. less ‘set in their ways’.
A show which skews old has to reach more people to make the same amount of money because advertisers are willing to pay less per average viewer, due to the above.
There’s always ABC 😛
Great piece, David! Also don’t forget some of the fantastic musical theatre performers who are also skilled actresses with television comedy and drama credits to their name – Geraldine Turner, Toni Lamond, Jill Perryman et al. As mentioned above, let’s hope television execs take some notice!
We keep hearing how “baby boomers” (and I am one) are going to cause so many problems for the economy because there are so many of us, and we refuse to lie down and die. A lot of us also have reasonably high disposable incomes (a lot of us owning our own houses etc) yet advertisers constantly ignore us (except when advertisung incontinence pads, funeral plans or denture cleaners) and think only young people like to spend money (one of my favourite activities). Shows like Midsomer Murders, Miss Marple and the like often rate quite well because we like them and watch them and they often have older performers in leading, supporting and guest roles. A smart Australian producer would put these facts together and produce the type of show you are referring to, and, I suspect, the ratings would follow. Maybe the producers / advertisers are too busy chasing their own lost youth, and attempting to appear hip!!
Reflected in live theatre which you would have thought was better: I can’t find it online, but The Age has a profile of Reg Livermore today in which he says that the Opera House turned his latest show down because “old people were well catered for” already with the ballet, opera and symphony. Heaven forbid us young ‘uns should actually also want to watch oldies in a show.
I adore Denise on the Circle! I love older performers, they have so much of interest to say and nothing to prove.
The best show for giving elderly actors/actresses a go was Last of the Summer Wine. Most of the cast were in their seventies and eighties and two were pushing 90, Brian Murphy could get a laugh without saying a word, just by his facial expression. Look at June Whitfield, in her eighties and still has plenty of work.
Shame on the BBC. As the song goes…They Don’t Make Em Like That Anymore.
Agree. There should be more old folks on TV. Put them on a BMX bike and send them down a ramp. You could call it Osteo Circus.
lovely piece. very true.
Totally agree, there should be more for the older generation, after all we actually sit and watch our TV sets still.
I have two sons a niece and a nephew, they barely watch any TV ‘on’ their TV sets, they download most of what they watch, because they want to watch it when ‘they want to’ and they want it ‘all’ now and asap!
I have never understood the network obsession with getting the younger demo’s, because so many of them have given up watching their TV sets.
I honestly think, that TV Week, should consider a massive HOF class in 2012.
The idea would be, that the female Gold Logie winners from the first thirty years of the Logies (i.e from inception, to 1988) would be inducted into the Hall of Fame all at once, (even though their names would be separate entries and be introduced separately throughout the ceremony), to give the Hall of Fame a much needed female boost, with a look towards inducting one male and one female each year, after 2012.
While it’s a nice idea to celebrate the elderly on TV it won’t happen. TV reflects greater society and the elderly are hardly well treated there. Been to a publicly funded aged care home recently? Tried to get a job as an over 50 (and for the record I’m not there yet at a mere 43 but have sat on recruitment panels multiple times and heard the repulsive, derogatory comments made about any applicant over 50, especially the women who everyone assumes are dolts). It’s a tough world for the aged, especially older women, why should TV be any different?
Hazel Phillips
Noeline Brown
Chelsea Brown (Remember her?)
Colette Mann
Denise Drysdale
Carol Raye
Delvene Delaney
Now go and them in a room and see the laugh’s fly!
Won’t somebody please think of the elderly!!!!!
Good old simpsons
yeah give the older actors a go to many young actors on tv theese days if they started a show like say a country practice the sullivans etc that had manily older characters then i would give it a go
I so hope TV executives take note David..Most older people at home would love to see actors they grew up with, entertain them again.
Hazel Phillips was actually the second female Gold Logie winner. She won in 1967, but Lorrae Desmond was the first in 1962 🙂 But I agree TV doesn’t do enough for the older generation and utilising their talents… I mean the last time I saw a grandmother on TV they poured sour cream over her.
If we get an Aussie Golden Girls rip-off to air, I’m blaming this site!
i saw the Hazel Phillips story on TT as well. For a woman in her early 80’s she looks and sounds utterly fabulous and if there was a TV producer out there with half a brain cell, they would snap her up for a Betty White-esque style sitcom. Phillips was a comedienne, so i’m sure she could easily handle it. You are absolutely correct in your observation – older women magically disappear off Australian TV screens by the time they are 60, simply because they are not in the beloved demographics so loved by advertisers and TV programmers. That she has been reduced to shilling herself on a TV talent show speaks volumes about the industry.
There is no doubt David Knox, that you are an experienced writer and observer of the small screen with great heart and passion. I know that executives and media players read this blog. Your championing of this idea, and many others should indeed be absorbed by such tv types. I grew up watching Hazel Phillips, and can picture her in my mind’s eye right now. So too Denise, Lorraine Bayly, Lorrae Desmond and countless other great Aussie women who are thankfully still with us. I too, would love to see a vehicle in 2012, like in 1978 as with Prisoner that changed the course of narrative production. Sometimes you have to look back to move forwards, and I throw down a gauntlet to screenwriters and producers to find such a vehicle. Australians are witty, absurdist and hilarious – can we not honour that quintessential Oz spirit and personify it through a sitcom with some older, wiser and very talented women?