Screenwriter Julian Fellows blasts TV executives for being obsessed with 'mythical' younger audience



Screenwriter Julian Fellowes said that TV is for a 'more adult' audience



Television executives are obsessed with pandering to youthful audiences, an Oscar-winning screenwriter claims.



Julian Fellowes, who wrote Gosford Park and Young Victoria, said broadcasting bosses should stop seeing age as a problem.



He said TV was run by children of the 1960s who were caught up in the cult of youth and wanted to believe they were still young at heart.



'One of the agreeable things about TV is that it is for an older, more adult audience,' said Mr Fellowes. 'You often hear talk about trying to get a young audience but television is not really for a young audience.



'They have a different way of spending their time. Very few in their teens and twenties will watch TV in the traditional way.



'I can't tell you the number of discussions I've had about this mythical youth audience. It fascinates me that very few TV executives seem to feel empowered to embrace the older audience.'



Mr Fellowes, 60, said that attitudes change by the age of 30: 'The age thing should not be seen as a problem for television. We should not lose sight of the older audience. The age of TV is 30 until death.'



He told Broadcast's TV Drama Forum that the industry needed to learn from the 1990s series Cold Feet. He claimed it had been repeatedly turned down by executives because it focused on the over-30s - the precise reason it became so popular.

Fellowes cited 1990s series Cold Feet as a perfect example of the ideal TV show



ITV, which has commissioned his new drama Downton Abbey, has axed shows popular with older audiences including Heartbeat, The Royal and Kingdom.



Laura Mackie, ITV's director of drama, said: 'ITV aims to make drama that appeals to a broad audience and Julian is right in saying that drama viewers tend to skew older.



'That said, a number of our series including Wild At Heart and Married, Single, Other do have appeal to the young and we always aim for as diverse an audience as possible'.

On camera: Screenwriter Fellowes also starred in BBC family drama Monarch Of The Glen



A BBC spokesman said: 'The average age of our drama audience is 55 and while it is vital that we continue to cater for them - and equally our younger viewers - the defining quality for us is always how good a script is.'





