• by Sarah Mahoney , Staff Writer @mahoney_sarah, December 31, 2007

Television gives the boomers a unique pop-cultural glue

The generation that started with the postwar population explosion has always fancied itself something of a dandy.

The TV babies survived the atomic age and saw an era of unprecedented progress, which continues at an increasingly frenzied pace. They've never shied away from embracing each new technology as it came down the conveyer belt. Think Lucille Ball shoving chocolates in her mouth to keep up - only now the chocolates are iPhones. And, as the voice of American solipsism, they've remained at the cultural center, defining everything around them through their own experiences. When asked how such a narcissistic group might respond to becoming antiquated, Gregory Metcalf, a 49-year-old Ph.D. in American Studies who admits to having a Myspace page, says flatly, "Badly." Are the kids not alright? "Boomers will simply never admit their irrelevance, because they literally cannot conceive of that possibility. If they start to become aware of it, they associate that with getting old and strive to become younger - through surgery, drugs, cars, media consumed, style." So, this generational Dorian Gray which grew up on TV is fighting growing old with Facebook. But what does the portrait in the attic look like?

Forget about hula hoops, Woodstock or the Rolling Stones. What really makes Baby Boomers different boils down to just two letters.

While every generation, to an extent, is defined by its favorite entertainment, Baby Boomers have a special sibling-like bond with television. The big Boom started in 1946, and by the following year - when the very first wave of postwar babies were pulling themselves to standing in living room playpens - America had already mastered its rabbit ears.

And with just three networks and a handful of local stations, "everybody in the Baby Boom fed from the same cultural trough," says Robert Thompson, a professor at Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. "It was really an extraordinary moment in history. Everybody watched the same thing at the same time. It was a communal experience, and you had to watch it all. If you wanted to see the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show, you had to sit through the card tricks," he says. "To this generation, TV was a cultural glue."

This close relationship with TV creates a sharp dividing line between Boomers and the generations that followed. Sure, Gen X and Gen Y kids watched TV, too - maybe even more of it. But Boomers prided themselves on being up on it all, steeped in the canon of the classics. "Among Boomers, everyone watched The Andy Griffith Show. Even if they didn't like it, they'd seen it a few times. For the kids I teach today, there's no programming like that," Thompson says. "Between Disney and Nickelodeon and the Cartoon Network, they don't have the same common TV language that Boomers do."

It's not that Baby Boomers can't talk pop culture with their younger cohorts - it's just different. Boomers use TV references as a kind of shorthand. So one Boomer - whether he is 42 or 62 - can lean in and say, "I hate spunk," to a coworker, and know he's invoking Lou Grant squelching an overly ambitious Mary Richards. And not only will younger coworkers not have any idea why their older colleagues are all tossing berets in the air, they truly don't get why anyone would seek out TV as a common ground. To a Gen Xer or Gen Yer, never having watched even a single episode of The Office isn't a character failing, it's just not their thing. For a Baby Boomer, not having any knowledge of a top-rated show is a sign of being out of step.

That's because they regard TV as such an integral experience. "Baby Boomers feel TV was created just for them," says Tanya Giles, senior vice president of research and planning for Viacom's MTV Entertainment Networks, which includes the Boomer-driven TV Land. When it began researching whether Baby Boomers liked to be labeled as such, only 10 percent of those in its surveys said they identify with the Baby Boomer label. But 57 percent think of themselves as "the TV generation," she says.

Many love the idea that they've shared so many experiences with 76 million of their closest friends, creating a kind of generational unity. Take humor, says Bill Carroll, vice president and director of programming for the Katz Television Group. "When Johnny Carson was hosting The Tonight Show, he'd make a joke. You could retell it the next day, and everyone would be on the same page. Today, Jay Leno gets a different audience than David Letterman. Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Conan O'Brien all have an audience. So there's a diversity of humor. But the audience is much more fragmented."

That bygone sense of unity goes beyond the fact that you can get a smile out of most Baby Boomers just by humming "Come On Get Happy" from The Partridge Family. TV pushed even the most resistant thinkers to deal with enormous social changes, such as civil rights, Thompson says. Sure, people didn't have to watch shows like Roots or All in the Family. "But these were top-rated programs, and it really drove home the point that this was a different world," he says. "When Walter Cronkite did his editorial against the Vietnam War, that meant something - that became an announcement that this was no longer just the point of view of the counterculture." Today, with so many more programs available, "if you're of a certain political stripe you're not forced to look at something you don't want to anymore," Thompson says.

The fragmentation began earlier than most people think. While this sense of cultural unity is strongest among first-wave Boomers, says Giles, "our research finds that 1955 is the real dividing line. That's the year TV penetration reached 80 percent." To second-wave Boomers, TV always existed. But because there was so little programming for kids, these second-wavers had no choice but to embrace "old" programming, including shows meant for adults as well as the constantly rerunning kids' shows made for their older siblings. In fact, experts say, that's why 40-somethings who weren't even born in the 1950s know the plots of I Love Lucy reruns as well as 60-somethings.

Then cable began making inroads in the 1970s, when Thompson says it had a penetration of about 23 percent. "But it wasn't until the 1980s that most homes were going from six channels to 36 to 66, that it began to change the experience for children," says Thompson, ushering in specialized networks with new programs.

And the by-now adult Boomers loved cable. In fact, Giles says, they consider its invention the No. 1 cultural event of their time. (The Summer of Love, by the way, didn't even crack the top five.) But instead of seeing it as a medium for new programming, they immediately used it for what they loved best: Watching reruns. (Each new media, Thompson points out, repeats the pattern - Boomers also use DVDs as a way to buy complete sets of their favorite shows. While shows like I Love Lucy are big sellers, even more obscure shows do well at specialized media sites like TVparty. Founder Billy Ingram reports that Sea Hunt, The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show & Fractured Fairy Tales, The Untouchables, Family Affair, The Carol Burnett Show, and the Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour are best sellers.

Giles is also quick to point out that Boomers aren't merely nostalgia buffs, and current shows, such as CSI and 24, are among their favorites. They like reality programming, Giles says, even though they usually say they don't. "They may hate the gross-out stuff like Fear Factor, but they love American Idol," she says. "It has all the features Boomers crave. There's an intergenerational play - different generations coming together to share an experience. The contestants may be young, but all the judges are Boomers, and the songs are practically a soundtrack to Baby Boomers' lives. It's not mean-spirited. And it's very upbeat." Survivor and Dancing with the Stars are also popular, she says.

In fact, Carroll says, Boomers still gravitate toward the programs they believe will be shared by the most people. "The Academy Awards, the Super Bowl, the World Series - they like the idea that everyone is watching, regardless of their age," he says.

Boomers also "like a compelling storyline," Giles says. "They grew up with the three-act narrative - a beginning, an end and a conflict that gets resolved," she says. "They like real characters they can relate to."

And perhaps most important, Thompson says, Baby Boomers have a great sense of humor about the role TV has played in their lives: "We love to mock it." His favorite example is Brady mania, fueled by a series of movies and even a touring theatrical show. A line like "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!" touches a chord in so many of us because, he says, "we loved The Brady Bunch - and we know it's stupid."

For this rerun generation, that can only mean one thing: It's time to love it again.