The Upfronts: CBS Tries To Snuff Demographically Undesirable Viewers With A Pillow
CBS has revealed its Fall schedule, and Viacom co-president/future galactic eater-of-worlds Les Moonves sounds like he's ready to shake the perception that his network is watched only by people killing time before the Lord finally takes them away from bleak lives of soaking dentures, rotten grandkids that never call, and meager Social Security checks:
"We're in a position now where we're younger — we're certainly hipper.
"I can almost guarantee you we're going to be up in 18 to 49," he added, referring to the 18- to 49-year-old demographic coveted by advertisers.
Hear that, Grandpa? The days of the Tiffany network spoon-feeding you television tapioca are over! Moonves knows where his Nielsen bread is buttered, and he's sending some kids with shag haircuts to beat you to death with their skateboards, then they're going to sell your WWII medals on eBay for Pogs money. And just how are Moonves and Co. going to capture these younger eyeballs? Three words:
Mandy. Fucking. Patinkin.
The kids are wild for Patinkin, and his FBI drama is sure to put foot to key demographic ass and dutifully record the names of those whose posteriors were rapidly displaced.
Also notable: Ghost Whisperer, in which CBS cashes in on the hot juggsy psychic trend and turns Jennifer Love Hewitt's prodigious rack into antennae highly attuned to paranormal tomfoolery, and Close to Home, a curveball from Jerry Bruckheimer, which will just be an hour of Uncle Jerry sitting in his deck chair, drinking Coronas, and seductively tracing the outline of his package with an extended pinky. Sure, it's a departure, but Moonves has learned to trust the man who's practically programmed his entire network.