With a few notable exceptions, teen programming has focused primarily on white, heterosexual, middle­ class teenagers, who compose one of the most lucrative consumer markets, given their propensity to shop often and indiscriminately, as well as their willingness to spend money on new and non-essential products. While TV reviews and programming schedules from the initial period of network television suggest that teenagers were the targeted demographic for early teen programming, as discussed in more detail below, contemporary TV ratings and marketing research suggest that today's teen programming is directed less to teenagers than to an audience comprised of viewers between 12 and 34 who share a youthful sensibility.

Teen Programming, Late 1940s to Mid-1960s

The development of teen-specific television programs must be considered within the larger context of the history of the teen consumer market. Due to the decrease in available jobs and the rise of progressive education initiatives during the Depression, adolescents were increasingly separated from adult work environments and encouraged to enroll in school over the course of the 1930s. This phenomenon led to a popular understanding of youth in their "teen" years (13 to 19) as forming a unique demographic group. With the rise of U.S. involvement in World War II, many adolescents left school and earned considerable income through their participation in the war economy. Because of an increase in their spending habits and purchasing power, these war-time youth laborers formed the first teenage consumer market. Media industries were quick to cash in on this new niche market, and teen-specific texts appeared in virtually every medium possible across the entertainment landscape of the 1940s, including novels, theatrical plays, motion pictures, comic books, and radio programs.

     With its development curtailed during World War II, television was the last form of media to direct its attention to teenagers. Yet, given TV's emergence within the broadcasting industry, which was already catering to teenage consumers via radio, it took but moments for television to join in the feeding frenzy over the burgeoning teen market. Indeed, although families were appealed to as the primary audience during television's initial phase, reviews and programming schedules demonstrate that the early TV industry attempted to attract the lucrative teenage consumer market through a broad assortment of teen-oriented programs.

     The first teen series to appear on television was Teen Canteen, which debuted in 1946. Broadcasting youth talent from a variety of teen canteens in New York state, the show remained on the air for two years, moving from its original home on WRGB in Schenectady to WPIX in New York City. Several other teen­ oriented variety shows, such as Teen Time Tunes (Du­ mont 1949), were introduced during TV's initial experimental period, as were teenage quiz shows such as Junior High School Quiz (CBS 1946), talent shows such as Paul Whiteman' s TV Teen Club (ABC 1949-54), and sports programs such as High School Football (WNBW-Washington, D.C. 1950). As was the case for much early TV programming content, several music shows popular with teenagers migrated from radio to television during this period also, including Coke Time with Eddie Fisher (NBC 1953-57). Perhaps the most successful programs with teenage viewers were those shows that combined popular music and dance, such as Teen Twirl (WNBK-Cleveland 1955), Teen Club Party (WON-Chicago 1957), and the enormously popular American Bandstand (WFIL­ Philadelphia 1952-57; ABC 1957-87), the longest­ running music/dance show on U.S. television to date.

A variety of educational  shows were also produced for  teenagers during  the late  1940s and  early 1950s. For example, several teenage discussion programs, such as Teenage Book Club (ABC 1948) and Today's Teens (WENR-Chicago 1951), appeared during this initial phase of telecasting. Several teen news magazines debuted during this period also, including Youth Wants to Know (NBC 1951-58), The New York Times Youth Forum (Dumont 1952-55), and Junior Press Conference (WFIL-Philadelphia 1952; ABC 1953- 60). The first (if not the only) juvenile court series, Youth Court (KTLA-Los Angeles 1958), was introduced during television's first decade also.

While real teenagers were featured in many of TV's first news, music, and talent programs, teen characters made their television debut via several early prime­ time domestic comedies that migrated from radio, such as The Aldrich Family (NBC 1949-53), The Goldbergs (CBS/NBC/Dumont 1949-54), and The Life of Riley (NBC 1949-50, 1953-58). As the TV and advertising industries began to focus more specifically on middle­ class suburban consumers during the 1950s, a slew of situation comedies featuring white, middle-class families dominated the prime-time programming schedule, including The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (ABC 1952-66), Make Room for Daddy (ABC/CBS 1953-64), Father Knows Best (CBS/NBC 1954-62), Leave It to Beaver (CBS 1957-58; ABC  1958-63), and The Donna Reed Show (ABC 1958-66). Interestingly, each of these suburban family sitcoms featured teenage characters who, over the course of the 1950s, moved further into the spotlight on such shows, perhaps due to marketers' discovery that teenagers had considerable power in establishing consumer trends among both younger and older viewers.

More significant to the development of teen TV programming, however, was the introduction of several school comedies during the 1950s, such as Mr. Peepers (NBC 1952-55) and Our Miss Brooks (CBS 1952-56). Unlike family programs, these school shows placed teenagers in non-domestic contexts, and thus called attention to the different social activities, spaces, and relationships that separated teens from adults and produced a distinct teen culture. By depicting teenagers in educational settings rather than family homes, these shows set the stage for later teen-oriented series, such as The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (CBS 1959-63). Although A Date with Judy (ABC 1951, 1952-53) and Meet Corliss Archer (CBS 1951-52; syndicated 1954-55) were the first TV shows whose titles featured a teen character's name, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis was the first prime-time series to consistently privilege teenage characters, activities, and spaces over those associated with family shows.

Following the success of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, particularly with young female viewers, a number of girl-centered sitcoms emerged in the late 1950s and early 1960s, including Too Young to Go Steady (NBC 1959), Peck's Bad Girl (CBS 1959-60), Margie (ABC 1961-62), Fair Exchange (CBS 1962-63), The Patty Duke Show (ABC 1963-66), Karen (NBC 1964-65), Tammy (ABC 1965-66), and Gidget (ABC 1965-66). Together with The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, these girl sitcoms helped to solidify many of the conventions of teen-oriented TV programming: the foregrounding of teen characters over adults, the privileging of schools over family homes as settings for action, and a focus on various stereotypical coming-of­ age issues, especially dating, earning spending money, and negotiating intergenerational conflict. In turn, all of these sitcoms reproduced the white, middle-class, heterosexual milieu associated with earlier family and school comedies.

In light of the increasing popularity of rock music among teenagers during the late 1950s and early 1960s (particularly after Elvis Presley's successful appearance on several variety shows}, TV executives further integrated this new music into programming in order to attract the teen demographic. For example, ABC brought several music programs to a national audience in the late 1950s and early 1960s, including the enormously successful American Bandstand and Shindig (1964-66). Interestingly, it was because of these shows' focus on rock, a form of popular music derived in part from African-American music, that the first black teenagers appeared on television.

Although teenagers appeared in a wide assortment of television shows and thus across the daily broadcasting schedule during TV's initial experimental period, teen programming became increasingly confined to two genres-the music/dance show and the  situation comedy-as well as two  time slots-late  afternoons and early prime-time--over the course of  the late 1950s and early 1960s. This trend would continue until the early 1990s.

The considerable attention paid to teenagers in programming during television's first two decades is best explained by several developments in the TV industry's programming patterns. First, the early years of telecasting were quite experimental, and a wide assortment of programming content was tested in both local and national markets, including shows directed to teenagers. Second, since the advertising industry was extremely interested in the teen demographic during this period, numerous teen-centered shows were programmed in an attempt to reach that market. Third, the large amount of teen programming during the first two decades of television is related to the development of ABC as a TV network. Often constructed in postwar broadcasting discourse as the "new kid on the block" because of its late emergence, ABC struggled far behind CBS and NBC during the networks' transition into television. In an effort to build its audience and gain more advertising revenue, ABC exploited its reputation as the youthful TV network by programming shows appealing to young families with children.

ABC's reputation as the youth-oriented  network was further enhanced in the mid- l950s through a partnership with Walt Disney Studios that resulted in the network's broadcasting of Disneyland (1954-61 ). ABC's ties to youthfulness did not begin or end with Disney, however, as is evidenced by the network's ongoing appeal to teenagers throughout the 1950s and 1960s via such programs as A Date with Judy, Junior Press Conference, American Bandstand, and Gidget. In fact, ABC was also the first network to feature a teenager in a cartoon series, Judy in The Jetsons (1962-63). Furthermore, the network's placement of Shindig and The Patty Duke Show back-to-back during the 1964-65 season created the first block of teen programming on prime-time television. Thus, to a much greater degree than the other two TV networks, ABC helped to integrate teenagers and television during the medium's first two decades in the United States.

Teen Programming, Mid-1960s to Late 1970s

In comparison to the early years of network television, the period between the mid 1960s and the late 1970s saw far less attention paid to teenagers by the TV industry and advertisers. Indeed, despite the popularity of teen-centered sitcoms in the late 1950s and early l960s, all of those series had ceased production by the summer of 1966. The decline of the teen sitcom during this period is partly the result of teen and media marketing research that demonstrated teenagers' minimal television viewing due to their involvement in various activities outside the family home. Beholden to advertisers for revenue, the TV networks were hesitant to program content for demographic groups that did not often watch television, and therefore commercials.

This rapid decrease in teen representation on television is related also to other transformations happening within the United States during this period. Most significantly, American youth culture changed dramatically over the course of the 1960s and 1970s. For instance, in the mid 1960s the teenage population as a proportion of the total U.S. population began to decline rapidly, a phenomenon that would continue throughout the 1970s as a result of a substantial decrease in  the U.S.  birth  rate. Moreover,  by the  mid 1960s, the first teenagers exposed to television had aged into young adults, and many were attending college and becoming involved in political and social activism. Often postponing marriage, children, and full­ time labor as they pursued further education and alter­ native lifestyles, these young adults required new forms of entertainment that appealed to their increased knowledge and mature experiences. As a result of these various phenomena, the television industry of the 1960s and early 1970s redirected its attention away from teenagers and teen sitcoms, and toward young adults and more mature fare, producing such programs as The Mod Squad (ABC 1968-73), and Hank (NBC 1965--66)-the first prime-time show centering on college life.

Although teenagers received little representation in the form of teen sitcoms during the late 1960s and 1970s, teen characters were featured in several animated cartoon series from this period, including The Archie Show (CBS 1968-76; NBC 1977-78), Sabrina, the Teenage Witch (CBS 1969-74; NBC 1977-78), Scooby-Doo (CBS 1969-71, 1978-79), and Josie and the Pussycats (CBS 1970-74; NBC 1975-76). In addition, teenagers appeared in several family sit-corns, including The Brady Bunch (ABC 1969-74) and The Partridge Family (ABC 1970-74). Not surprisingly, these cartoons and family shows featured the same type of characters as their targeted audience members: white, middle-class heterosexuals.

While cartoon series and family sitcoms from the late 1960s and early 1970s rarely addressed topical social issues, such as the Vietnam War or the civil rights movement, other programs from this period did attempt to draw attention to some of these contemporary concerns. For example, Room 222 (ABC  1969-74), the first dramatic school series, focused on a racially integrated high school in Los Angeles. One of the few teen-centered shows of this period, Room 222 was highly regarded for its foregrounding of contemporary teenage problems, such as drug use and dropping out of school.

In addition to Room 222, several sitcoms were introduced during this period that also drew attention to the experiences of African Americans, including Good Times (CBS 1974-79), a family comedy which focused on working-class, urban struggle, and What's Happening!! (ABC 1976--79), a teen-oriented sitcom about three male adolescents. Soul Train (WCIU-Chicago 1970; syndicated 1971-present), a music/dance program that modeled itself after American Bandstand, but featured African-American music, performers, and fans, was introduced during this period also. As the presence of these African-American-themed series suggests, 1970s' television programming demonstrated far more recognition of racial diversity than that of earlier periods. Moreover, such programming revealed an increase in the amount of attention paid to the African-American consumer market by TV executives and advertisers.

Although the introduction of African-American shows during the 1970s signaled transformations in not only the TV industry but U.S. society at large. there was a considerable segment of the white, middle-class television audience that longed for the allegedly more wholesome times of the 1950s. when issues such as race and class oppression were not explicitly addressed on TV. In addition, several influential interest groups were lobbying the FCC during this period for less sex and violence on television. In response to such concerns, TV executives programmed a variety of nostalgia shows. such as Little House on the Prairie (NBC 1974-83) and The Waltons (CBS 1972-81), which focused on rural white families during earlier periods of American history.

In an effort to compete with such "quality" nostalgia programming. ABC introduced two domestic series that merged traditional values with contemporary social issues. Eight is Enough (ABC 1977-81 ), which focused on a middle-class white family with eight children, and Family ( 1976-80), which centered on a middle-class white working couple and their children. Both of these series featured teenage characters and of­ ten raised contemporary teen issues, such as substance abuse and homosexuality. (Interestingly, despite the television industry's relative lack of attention to teenagers during this period. Kristy McNichol became the first teenage actor to earn an Emmy. In fact, she received two awards for her performance as the teenage daughter on Family.)

As a result of a gradual upswing in the teen population and the American economy during the mid-to-late 1970s, teen-specific shows slowly returned to television. The most popular of these shows was Happy Days (ABC 1974-84), a sit-com that focused on white, middle-class teenage life in the 1950s. ABC executives attempted to tap further into teen interest and adult nostalgia by adapting two book series continuously popular with different generations of young readers. The Hardy Boys and The Nancy Drew Mysteries (ABC 1977-79). In addition to What's Happening!!, Welcome Back, Kotter (ABC 1975-79), which focused on delinquent white, male youth in a Brooklyn school, was one of the few teen programs of the 1970s to focus on contemporary teenagers.

Teen Programming, Early 1980s to Early 2000s

Although teen characters appeared in several family sit-corns of the 1980s, including Family Ties (NBC 1982-89), The Cosby Show (NBC 1984-92), Married ... with Children (FOX 1987-97), and  Roseanne ( ABC 1988-97), teenagers gained far more representational space during this period via shows that featured them outside the family home. In fact, the majority of 1980s' teen series focused specifically on high-school experiences. For example, The Facts of Life (NBC 1979-88) featured the predominantly teen female milieu of a girls' boarding school. (Though audiences had been introduced to contemporary teen girl issues via the family sitcom One Day at a Time [CBS 1975-84 ). The Facts of life was the first girl-centered sitcom broadcast since 1966, and thus marked a shift away from the male-dominated teen programming of the 1970s.)

Several other school-oriented shows were intro­duced in the 1980s also, including Fame (NBC 1982-83), a dramatic series based on a film about the racially and class-integrated High School of Performing Arts in New York City; Head of the Class (ABC 1986-91), which focused on students "gifted" with superior intelligence; and Saved by the Bell (NBC 1989-93), which began airing during afternoons and moved later into prime-time. Although not strictly located within the educational milieu, The Wonder Years (ABC 1988-93) often made use of school sitcom conventions in its depiction of a teenage boy growing up in the 1960s. Doogie Howser, M.D. (ABC 1989-93) attempted to merge the different spheres of high school and higher education by focusing on a gifted teen in medical school. Meanwhile, A Different World (NBC 1987-93, a spin-off of The Cosby Show, featured the first African-American college youth on TV.

Perhaps the most significant teen-specific television phenomenon of the 1980s was the introduction of Music Television (MTV). Debuting in 1981, MTV began as a cable network devoted to the broadcasting of promotional videos for popular music. Taking many of its cues from earlier teen-oriented music shows, like American Bandstand, MTV has consistently promoted itself as a youth-oriented medium. Continuously ranked as the network most watched by teenagers. MTV has appealed primarily to white, upper-middle-class, male adolescent viewers (specifically those with cable or satellite subscriptions), a niche market that prior to the 1980s showed little interest in watching television.

As MTV expanded its appeal to teenagers throughout the 1990s and afterwards, particularly by international­izing its operations and moving beyond its original music-oriented programming, other TV networks also increased their attention to teens. Indeed, teenagers had more prime-time representation between 1990 and 2000 than during the previous two decades combined. The large amount of teen-specific programming during this period was no doubt the result of tremendous booms in both the American economy and the teen population. In turn, this rise in teen programming is related to various transformations in the TV industry, especially the increased amount of media-industry conglomeration and the introduction of cable and satellite delivery systems.

One of the more significant aspects of this period was the TV and advertising industries' specific appeal to female youth as television viewers. Given the considerable amount of recent marketing research demonstrating that girls tend to watch TV more than boys (due in part to female youth having less independence from parents and homes), girls, who also tend to shop more than boys, became the most appealing niche market for those advertisers interested in attracting the large 1990s' teen demographic.

Not surprisingly, the teen sitcom was one of the primary genres to feature teenagers in the 1990s. Several popular teen comedies from the 1980s continued into the next decade, while a considerable number of new shows were introduced also, including Hull High (NBC 1990), Fresh Prince of Bel Air (NBC 1990--96), Blossom  (NBC  1991-95),  Phenom  (ABC  1993-94), Boy  Meets  World   (ABC  1993-2000),  Sister,  Sister (WB  1994-99),  Moesha  (UPN  1995-2001), Clueless (ABC 1996-97; UPN 1997-99), Sabrina, the Teenage Witch (ABC 1996-2001; WB 2001-present), and That '70s Show (FOX 1998-present). Attesting to the considerable popularity of Saved by the Bell, when the series ended in 1993, a new show based on the original was introduced, Saved by the Bell: The New Class (NBC 1993-2000).

Although teenage representation in 1990s' television was largely associated with the teen sitcom, teenage characters also appeared in animated cartoons, such as Beavis and Butt-head (MTV 1993-97) and Daria (MTV 1997-2001). One of the most significant programming phenomena of this period, however, was the emergence of the teen-centered dramatic serial, which merged conventions of soap operas, teen sitcoms, and other genres that have traditionally featured adult characters, such as horror and science fiction. Some of the more popular teen serials introduced in the 1990s include Beverly Hills, 90210 (FOX 1990--2000), Party of Five (FOX 1994-2000), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (WB 1997-2001; UPN 2001-2003), Dawson's Creek (WB 1998-2002), and Roswell (WB 1999-2002).

Many of these teen serials relied on the coming-of­ age tropes already associated with the teen sitcom; however, due to their adherence to melodramatic conventions, these serials also included issues of concern to contemporary teenagers, such as sexual experimentation, gang membership, and teen pregnancy. While the majority of 1990s' teen programs focused on white, middle-class teenagers, a considerable number the series included various types of youth marginalized by the TV industry in earlier periods. For example, several teen sitcoms focused specifically on African­ American youth, including Hull High, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Moesha, and Sister, Sister, while many other teen shows featured mixed-race casts. In turn, several teen serials from this period included fonts of youth identity traditionally excluded from TV programming. For instance, My So-Called Life (ABC 1994-95) was the first prime-time series to include a bisexual teenager; The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo (Nickelodeon 1996-99) was the first prime-time program to feature an Asian-American teen; and Dangerous Minds (ABC 1996-97) was the first prime-time show to focus on Latino youth.

Teenage TV Viewing and the "Teen" Demographic

While the broadcasting of teen programming is clearly related to marketers' attempts to attract a specific group of consumers, research on TV viewing habits conducted at various points during the past five decades demonstrates that teenagers use this medium far less than any other demographic group except infants. Because of their interest in non-domestic activities that involve the prioritizing of peers, rather than familial relationships, many teenagers do not rely on television as their primary leisure activity. Although television has always competed for teen consumers with other forms of entertainment and leisure, the increasing penetration of personal computers, the Internet, and the World Wide Web into American homes over the course of the late-20th and early-21st centuries has led to an even greater decline in teen TV viewing.

The fifty-odd-year tradition of teenagers' minimal television use calls into question the assumed relationship between teen programming and teenage viewers. Indeed, ratings for many recent teen-centered series suggest that those individuals perhaps most invested in teen programming today are not teenagers (who typically steer clear of products marketed as "teen"), but rather those viewers who look to teenagers as role models, especially pre-teens and young adults. Thus, while the teen audience originally constructed by early TV executives and advertisers may have been restricted to actual teenagers, today's "teen" demographic now encompasses viewers between the ages of 12 and 34.

The recent expansion of TV's "teen" demographic is due to transformations in both the television industry and generational identities over the last few decades. For instance, better nutrition is causing children to mature physically at an earlier age than ever before, and advertisers are encouraging them to adopt aspirational behaviors at younger ages than members of previous generations. These children often look up to teenagers as their primary role models. At the same timem an increasing number of young adults, particularly those of the middle class. are prolonging adolescence via their enrollment in college, as well as graduate and professional schools. Moreover, a considerable number of these young adults are postponing or rejecting the traditional rituals of adulthood, particularly marriage and children, and continue to be drawn to various aspects of youth culture.

As a result of these various social phenomena, adolescence is no longer a life stage associated with only those in their teenage years, and has become instead an identity that describes a much broader group of individuals. This expansion of adolescent identity works well in relation to the marketplace, since youthfulness is an attitude and lifestyle that is particularly exploitable in American society. Thus manufacturers, retailers, and advertisers use youthfulness to cash in on not just teenagers, but also pre-teens, who are encouraged by the market to buy commodities produced for older consumers, as well as many adults, who, despite their age, are encouraged by the market to think, act, look, and, most importantly, shop as if they were young.

These changes in generational identity are interestingly related to recent transformations in  the television industry. For instance, over the last two decades,  the traditional mass audience has been increasingly fragmented due to the greater amount  of  programming made possible via cable and satellite delivery systems. Thus, networks are no longer able to rely on earlier programming strategies to attract a large audience, such as broadcasting programs targeting  families with children. As a result, in the 1980s and early 1990s networks began to turn to other programming strategies, especially narrowcasting, which appeals to smaller, lucrative demographic segments, such as middle-class women. Nevertheless, since narrowcasting cannot attract a large enough number of viewers to maintain the high ratings needed to satisfy advertisers, new networks struggling to get a foothold in the industry have built their audiences by attracting a coalition  of  viewers who do not share a  similar  demographic  identity, but have a similar sensibility or aspire to a similar lifestyle. (This strategy of targeting viewers with particular interests is now far easier as the result of new digital TV technologies, such as TiVo, that record data on individual viewers’ programming  interests,  which is then made available to advertisers.)

Given  that  the "teen" demographic  is now seen  as one of the most lucrative markets, young networks such as FOX and WB have targeted upscale viewers aged 12 to 34 who share a youthful sensibility to build their coalition audiences. To attract such viewers, these networks have relied considerably on teen programming. Moreover, in an attempt to reach the most lucrative segment of this demographic-those who own a personal computer and subscribe to an Internet service provider-these networks have developed websites, like www.buffy.com, that supplement their teen series. By visiting such a website, viewers can join a show's official fan club, purchase products related to the series or its network, and obtain information about the show's history, stars, and upcoming episodes. In addition, several websites associated with teen series include chat rooms where fans communicate with other viewers and, at times, a show's production staff.

The development of such TV-associated websites, the transformation of the teen demographic, the inclusion of teenagers in traditionally adult-oriented genres, and the debut of teen-oriented cable networks are all evidence of the profoundly different nature of the contemporary television industry and teen programming. Given that the teenage population in the United States is predicted to increase until 2010, and marketers reliance on discourses of youthfulness shows no evidence of abating anytime soon. We can reasonably expect that teenagers will continue to have a strong presence in TV programming during the remainder of the 21st century's first decade.