http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AudienceShift



There's new demographics

When nobody asked for it!" Homestar Runner, Xeriously Forxe "Edgy and angry, so zesty and tangy!There's new demographicsWhen nobody asked for it!"

Retooling a show or theme for a different audience is an especially tricky process. Very successful shows are often structured around a specific appeal to demographics into a winning combo, with minor (un)intentional concessions to Periphery Demographics, creating happy side revenue. This is evident in anime fandom's terms like shojo and shonen being treated as quasi-genres. But actively retooling a show to a new specific audience tends to result in stuff not seen as good as the original, perhaps because it automatically invites comparisons. This can create bad situations like Recycled In Space, and eventually lead to Pandering to the Base, although there are occasional gems. In less cynical situations, this may happen just because writers tend to be out of their element in different kinds of stories.

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Sometimes, this is a result of a long-since-discontinued series being revived years after the fact. Technically, it's aimed at the same demographic as before—they're just older and can handle more adult things now. Of course, remember that Tropes Are Tools; it can be hard for less experienced writers to work more mature material into the aforementioned series without coming off as pandering, and even if the transition is handled relatively well, it can still be disconcerting to see characters the audience has treasured since childhood suddenly start making sex jokes.

Due to Values Dissonance, many anime and manga are aimed at older audiences in dubs and translations. This causes fans to mistake them for being aimed at more mature viewers/readers than they really are.

Note that the Audience Shift is different from a Genre Shift, as the latter's changes usually keep the same kind of viewers.

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Examples:

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Anime & Manga

Asian Animation

Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf, a children's series, has had at least two seasons/spinoffs with changes in the target audience: Pleasant Goat Fun Class is aimed at a younger audience than the original. It features cuter designs, less drama, and more education. Mr.Wolffy, Mr.Right! is aimed at a slightly older audience. This is apparent due to it being about Wolffy's relationships at the workplace.



Comic Books

Marvel and DC superhero comics have a long history of this. Originally they were meant for anyone but then The Comics Code happened so they changed to make them more kid-friendly. Eventually both sides got tired of obeying the comics code and began aiming the comics toward older and older audiences. Now the comics are mostly targeted at teens and adults.

The Gargoyles continuation comic and its spin-off, Bad Guys, have a much more adult bent to them, with things like stabbing (with blood!), suicides, and even more complex characterization than the TV series had.

2000 AD was initially aimed at 8-12 year old boys, but like what happened with American comics, gradually started appealing to older tastes as its readers aged. In the late 90s, Tharg attempted to launch a new comic called Earthside 8 to bring in 2000 AD's original demographic, but the plan was scrapped.

Archie Comics: Archie Comics occasionally feature a story in which the characters are involved in dangerous or hostage situation, usually featuring a villain with some sort of firearm. At some point Archie Comics decided it needed to be more "kid friendly" and edited out said guns when stories are reprinted. The results were usually odd; Archie and friends would be extremely intimidated by people who were simply pointing at them and unarmed people are depicted walking or running as if they were holding an invisible rifle. In addition, there were a few rare comics that seemingly have stopped being reprinted presumably due to subject matter. One involved Betty and Veronica discussing about Archie (and explicitly calling him "sexy"). An early comic of Cheryl Blossom featured her attempting to go topless at a beach, while her brother disguised a beer can as a soda can. The second comic can be found in a "Best of Archie Comics" release, but otherwise neither of them have been reprinted in over a decade (despite the company's tendency to frequently reprint comics from well over 20 years ago). In the 2010s Archie began expanding their horizon with more Darker and Edgier spinoffs such as Afterlife with Archie or Archie vs. Predator. This is turn caused the Continuity Reboot Archie Comics (2015) to be aimed at slightly older audiences than their original demographic, though they're still pretty family friendly.

The Jem cartoon was aimed at girls twelve and under. The IDW Jem and the Holograms comic reboot is aimed at an older audience, though not much is actually above PG rating aside from mild swearing and slight sexuality.

The The Transformers (IDW) comics are likewise aimed at the older Periphery Demographic of the franchise instead of young boys, although, again, besides a couple of "damns" and alcohol references (though both have some basis in canon), it's fairly tame.

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Films — Animation

Films — Live-Action

Literature

Harry Potter started out as a kids' series, but slowly mutated into more of a young-adult series as the primary fanbase grew older. J. K. Rowling supposedly wrote the later books to acknowledge this, introducing themes when she thought the audience would be ready - thus dating (the Yule Ball) and the death of a schoolmate in Book 4, etcetera.

The Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys franchises got a little Spin-Off-happy in the 1980s, and ever since, they've created several spin-off series designed to audience shift in both directions. Each series has had two Spin-Off Babies series shifting even younger than the original preteen markets. Nancy had the Nancy Drew Notebooks and Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew, while the Hardys has The Clues Brothers and The Secret Files. They also each had a Darker and Edgier spinoff geared toward teen and young adult audiences. The Nancy Drew Files and The Hardy Boys Casefiles, and their crossover Supermysteries all dialed up the romance, upped the body count, and dealt with much more mature content (in the very first Casefile, Joe's girlfriend is blown up by a terrorist's car bomb. )

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was designed as a kid's book but it's usually marketed in modern times for teens and adults. In American schools, it's also compulsory reading for high schoolers.

Live-Action TV

Music

Happens regularly to teen oriented pop bands (Duran Duran, the Backstreet Boys, and Bon Jovi being three obvious examples) who choose to grow up with their original fans, moving on to a softer, more mature sound, rather than trying to win over a new generation of teens.

Linkin Park evoked that with the change of their sound as well, shifting lyrical content from personal issues to political content, decreasing the amount of screaming, and not having as many guitars.

Pro Wrestling

Toys

The BeForever revamp of the American Girls Collection flagship historical line and the Truly Me revamp of the modern line are intended to try and prevent this. These dolls are, like the books they're paired with, intended for the 8-12 demographic with a clear stated aim of letting these kids be kids instead of be pressured to age out of age-appropriate things and try to grow up fast. However, parents who didn't get the memo are actually contributing to the problem by buying the dolls for younger kids, sometimes even toddlers, to the point where kids declare that they've grown out of their "babyish" dolls before they actually hit the appropriate age for them! The other problem with this is that these parents are risking their kids' health with choking and injury hazards (though the newer accessories go for plastic instead of glass and metal and bunch things like food items together instead of making them separate and more easily lost). Thus, with the aforementioned revamps, the company put a focus on the books and compiled them into larger editions with no illustrations, so they're more obviously middle-grades books; they also put heavy emphasis on the fact that these characters are 9-10-year-old girls and meant to be viewed as equal playmates, and ads show girls in the 8-12 age range.

In the 2010s the Easy Bake Oven changed its marketing strategy to be aimed at girls and boys instead of only girls. In 2012 Hasbro decided to redesign the oven to be gender neutral, in response to people whose son's wanted to bake but didn't enjoy the pink and purple colors of the toy.

After multipled failed attempts to reboot the children's Masters of the Universe franchise, Mattel gave up and aimed the latest incartion of the toyline, MOTUS Classics, strictly towards adult collectors.

Video Games

Web Original

Neopets was originally designed for college students, but over time its primary demographic has shifted younger and younger until it became mainly aimed at little kids. This can lead to What Do You Mean, It's for Kids? when younger users stumble upon some of the remnants of the site's early days. However, a second audience shift that balanced its focus to both kids and adults started around 2012 when older players (many of whom joined as kids) came back, culminating in the site being acquired from Viacom/Nickelodeon by Jump Start specifically because its skewed older.

Facebook was originally just for college students, but then it opened up to high school students as well, and eventually to everyone. This is part of the reason for its many layout changes over the years (for example, the decision to make it less oriented around school and work networks came not long after opening the site to everyone).

Western Animation

Real Life