When I first saw the headline of this Variety piece, "TV Audiences Are Growing Older," I thought, of course they're growing older. What, are there people that actually get younger as the years go by?

A new study shows that the average age of TV viewers of ABC, CBS, NBC is now 51 (FOX's is a bit younger but they're growing older too). CBS' average age has been 50 or over for quite some time (no surprise there, with the type of shows they have), but now ABC and NBC's age has jumped quite a bit in the past several years. The CW is the youngest.

That's interesting because just ten years ago the average age of a TV viewer was 43. Part of the jump is because of the introduction of the web and DVRs. The age of the people who use those are much younger than those who watch television. The Variety article breaks down all of the numbers.

Variety has an interesting article up about the age demographics of certain TV shows. It seems that the average age of the television viewer has risen to the age of 50, outside of the key demographic of 18 to 49.

The oldest-skewing shows are NBC's Monk and ABC's Women's Murder Club. Interestingly, the ages on ABC, Fox, and NBC have been rising while CBS, which promotes to an older demographic to begin with, remains steady.

The study was released by Magna Global's Steve Sternberg. "The median ages of the broadcast networks keep rising, as traditional television is no longer necessarily the first screen for the younger set," Sternberg wrote.