Family TV Viewing: Out-of-Fashion?

I am always attracted to articles and information that relates our entertainment tastes to our societal cultural shifts. In the Sunday Oct. 23rd edition of the L.A. Times there was an interesting article titled: "Fade Out on Family" by Greg Braxton that basically asked the question: "What happened to family hour on television?"

I am so old that I do remember family hour. It was usually defined as being between 8-10 P.M. It was a period in which shows specifically aimed at the family aired. Shows such as "Eight is Enough", "7th Heaven", "Little House on the Prairie", "The Cosby Show" and for people my age: "Bonanza", "The Ed Sullivan Show", "The Wonderful World of Disney" and "Wild kingdom" were the shows you'd mostly likely see during that time period. Anything featuring more adult themes, characters or tone would air later.

One of the reasons that there seems to be no designated family hour now is that the entire family seldom watches the same shows together. Just about every show is aimed at a specific age, cultural, or economic group. Programs like "Jersey Shore", "Ridiculousness" and "The Hills" are definitely not intended for my demographic; nor are they intended to be aimed at families.

As a kid, I watched television at least 80% of the time with my entire family. But of course, it was still the infancy of television and television itself was still a bit of a novelty. Plus, all programs were suitable for family viewing. The only time I watched television on my own was after school when I watched cartoons and "The Mickey Mouse Club" or "Howdy Doody" (yeah, I'm THAT old). On weekends I watched cartoons Saturday mornings but that was about it. The family owned one TV only and my parents controlled what we watched on TV and when. I didn't.

Part of the reason that families no longer sit around and watch TV together today is that there are so many other things vying for our time and attention. With the advent of cellphones, Ipods, Ipads, video game consols, social media, busy after-school schedules for kids and a wide variety of cable stations, it's less likely to find any one thing the family wants to do or watch at the same time.

There has also been increasing tension between the major networks and the creative community. Networks want programs that appeal to a wide audience. Producers, writers and production companies are favoring darker material these days. Programs like "CSI", "American Horror Story", "Boardwalk Empire" and "Breaking Bad" are clearly aimed at an adult audience.

Even the programs that are currently marketed as family fare, such as "Modern Family", "Two and half Men", Last man Standing" and "Glee" often contain mature or sexually-charged themes and language or characters that some parents may find inappropriate.

Even if we can no longer view very many programs as a family, at least there are channels that are age appropriate for all members of the family: Nickelodeon and Disney channels for kids, Spike TV and ESPN for Dad's and lifetime, TLC and Ovation for Moms. Obviously there are more channels than that aimed at each group and even though some appear to be sexist or racially-specific, they don't have to be, depending on your willingness to channel-surf and try out a variety of programming.

So, if we look at what is being offered during "family hour" on our current TV schedules on channels 2-11 (local) for just Monday through Wednesdays, we will find programs such as ""2 Broke Girls"; "The Sing Off"; "Dancing With the Stars"; "Simpsons"; "Mike and Molly"; "Gossip Girl"; "Hart of Dixie"; "Last man Standing"; "NCIS"; "Survivor"; "Up All Night"; "Whitney"; "Glee"; and "Suburgatory" just to name a few. How many of those programs would you watch with the entire family and would they all be interested?

Some days I kind of miss the oldies-but-goodies like "Lassie" and "The Roy Rodgers Show". But in actuality, I think many families do still watch "event" television together. Things like: The Rose Parade, The Superbowl and Awards Shows. Now if there was just something available everyone would enjoy together at least one hour a day for the other days of the year, family hour may have a chance at resurrection!