Shows once aimed at under-25s are reaching beyond their target demographic, reports Harry Bennett
Sex Education
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Netflix
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n the day before Netflix released the first series of Sex Education, Jamie Campbell, creative director of the producer, Eleven Film, recommen ded the series to his friend’s 18-year-old daughter. As a high-school drama about the sexual misadventures of teenagers, Campbell assumed Sex Education would resonate with her. She agreed to call the next day to share her thoughts, but when she did, she said she hadn’t watched it. When she got home, her mother, who was in her late fifties, had already started watching. Given the subject matter, she said she’d prefer to watch it in a parent- free zone. Campbell asked her if her mother had liked it: “She said, ‘The thing is, I got up the next day and my mum had stayed up until four in the morning to watch all the episodes.’” Sex Education is just one of many young-adult series that are striking a chord with audiences older than the generation they depict. In the recent past, Normal People, I May Destroy You, Feel Good, Ackley Bridge and Industry have all won audiences in their millions. The mainstream success of youngadult TV signals a change in viewing habits across all demographics. Argua bly, it shows a growing sophistication among audiences, who increasingly discriminate more by quality than by genre. This has been matched by a change in programming across all channels to align with these new habits. It is a trend that can be traced, in part, to the rise of the streaming and catch-up services, where broadcasters can promote what were once regarded as niche shows to help them break through to mass viewership. Netflix could reasonably claim to have been the prime mover in this paradigm shift. Unshackled from the linear schedule and the demands of advertisers, the streamer could afford to commission programmes for what, in the past, would have been niche audiences, and without, say, a specific age group in mind.
Young adult goes mainstream
