History Main / FleetingDemographic

* In the UK, twee/teen dramas ''Series/GrangeHill'' and ''Series/BykerGrove'' both had this. Both shows ran for long enough that their original target demographic became utterly periphery, but never completely left the show behind. Unfortunately, the BBC execs decided to shift the target demographic down towards ''even younger'' children, resulting in a complete loss of interest from ''all'' demographics, and the eventual cancellations of both shows.

* Non-TV example used as a plot point in ''WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain'': Bil Keane's ''FamilyCircus'' cartoon seems to fall squarely in this section.

* ''Comicbook/{{Superman}}'' comics in the [[SilverAge 1950s and 1960s]] used to [[RecycledScript repeat the same plots]] [[FleetingDemographicRule every three to five years]], since that was the average length of time a child would read comics. The introductions of Mon-El and Star Boy in the ComicBook/{{Legion of Super-Heroes}} are well-known for outright copying earlier stories, to the point where the story that became the Mon-El story was most likely reprinted in the ''Superman in the 50's'' book specifically because this made it famous.

* ''Series/BarneyAndFriends'', ''Series/{{Teletubbies}}'' and most other "preschool"-oriented shows. While earlier examples like ''SesameStreet'' had enough ParentalBonus to benefit from the NostalgiaFilter, the success of ''Barney'' led to a trend in the '90s of making these shows as plotless and repetitive as possible, out of the belief that that made them more suitable for the target audience. Now that those original toddler "fans" are teens and young adults, they want as little to do with these shows as their parents and older siblings did.

* Male teenage pop stars and boy bands have a similar problem: The Jonas Brothers were a big teen phenomenon, but their popularity suddenly tanked in 2009 as people started to get tired of Disney shoving them down their throats. This void was filled by Music/JustinBieber, who became an even bigger phenomenon. Unfortunately, as fast as his fanbase was growing, his hatedom was growing even faster. This turned Bieber into the media's punching bag. Bieber's massive HypeBacklash in turn brought Music/OneDirection into the spotlight. The boy band quickly knocked Bieber off of his throne, and once his bad behavior came into play, Bieber fever was over.

* Takara & {{Sunrise}}'s ''Anime/BraveSeries'' of SuperRobot shows is an interesting case, as they originally set out to produce something that would attract a new generation of kids each year, but wound up developing a dedicated fanbase anyway. Though the sixth series, ''Anime/TheBraveOfGoldGoldran'', the most "kiddie" of the bunch had the highest TV ratings, it was unpopular with longtime fans and was apparently a merchandising disappointment as well. After that, the final two shows went for MultipleDemographicAppeal, first with ''Anime/BraveCommandDagwon'', where the robots were piloted by a team of teen heartthrobs in an attempt to cash in on the earlier ''[[RoninWarriors Samurai Troopers]]'' series' PeripheryDemographic success with teenage girls (a scheme Sunrise would again pull, this time with much greater success with ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamWing''). Then came ''Anime/GaoGaiGar'', a giant love letter to the last two decades of giant robot anime which found much more success with the otaku crowd than it ever did with schoolchildren.

* Non-TV example used as a plot point in ''PinkyAndTheBrain'': Bil Keane's ''FamilyCircus'' cartoon seems to fall squarely in this section.

* German TV Station Sat1 attempted to invoke PeripheryDemographic with ''WesternAnimation/ExtremeGhostbusters'' with the slogan "The Ghostbusters are back", and the time slot of just before prime time on weekdays (7pm, with prime time starting at 20:15 in Germany). Unfortunately, ''Extreme Ghostbusters''' style clashed with ''WesternAnimation/TheRealGhostbuster'''s, and the only opportunity where they could have opted for consistency - using the old voice actors for the returning characters - was passed either out of laziness or because the voice actors in question were too high-priced by now. This led to old fans to dismiss the show, which was quickly shoved into a saturday morning cartoon slot.

* ''Franchise/PowerRangers'': Although the show does have its older fans, the general demographic is young boys who will grow out of the show after a few years, which is probably why the show started doing the new storyline every year thing instead of the continuing storyline it used to do. Since this is exactly what happens in the Japanese couterpart, ''SuperSentai'', no one seems to mind.

* Hello, HilaryDuff! Or MileyCyrus! Or... well, pick any tween musician. They're going to be around for a couple years until their current fans get older, at which point the next one comes along. Most of these girls turn out to be [[ContractualPurity their own fleeting demographic]].

* The comic strip ''{{Marvin}}'', about the exploits of an ill-behaved redheaded baby, is designed to appeal to one group and one group only: young mothers. This allows the strip to recycle ideas every few years, and has also lent to its poor reputation among comics fans (this is one of those strips that people love to hate).

* German TV Station Sat1 attempted to invoke PeripheryDemographic with ExtremeGhostbusters with the slogan "The Ghostbusters are back", and the time slot of just before prime time on weekdays (7pm, with prime time starting at 20:15 in Germany). Unfortunately, ExtremeGhostbusters' style clashed with TheRealGhostbuster's, and the only opportunity where they could have opted for consistency - using the old voice actors for the returning characters - was passed either out of laziness or because the voice actors in question were too high-priced by now. This led to old fans to dismiss the show, which was quickly shoved into a saturday morning cartoon slot.

* German TV Station Sat1 attempted to invoke PeripheryDemographic with ExtremeGhostbusters with the slogan "The Ghostbusters are back". Unfortunately, ExtremeGhostbusters' style clashed with TheRealGhostbuster's, and the only opportunity where they could have opted for consistency - using the old voice actors for the returning characters - was passed either out of laziness or because the voice actors in question were too high-priced by now.

** ''[[Anime/BraveCommandDagwon Dagwon]]'' actually had a slightly different problem -- it was made to cash in on ''[[Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion Evangelion]]'', and the overall feel of the stories was frequently closer to ''Series/{{Ultraman}}'' than anything else. If anything, the target audience ''had'' to grow up a bit to appreciate it.
* Much of the longevity of the ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' anime can be attributed to the fact that the target demographic cycles through about ever five years, so the fact that the same general plot is used every generation only serves to annoy some [[PeripheryDemographic older fans]] (mostly outside Japan) and no one else.
** This was taken to its utter extreme in ''Anime/PokemonGenesectAndTheLegendAwakened'', where the legendary Pokémon Mewtwo was featured. Although the series had a pre-established and unique Mewtwo character, this movie chose to introduce a brand-new Mewtwo and have no connection to the original, presumably to make things easier for the young children of the day to understand. [[{{Irony}} Never mind that they brought back Ash's Charizard from the same era.]]

* ''Comicbook/{{Superman}}'' comics in the [[SilverAge 1950s and 1960s]] used to [[RecycledScript repeat the same plots]] [[FleetingDemographicRule every three to five years]], since that was the average length of time a child would read comics.
** The introductions of Mon-El and Star Boy in the ComicBook/{{Legion of Super-Heroes}} are well-known for outright copying earlier stories, to the point where the story that became the Mon-El story was most likely reprinted in the ''Superman in the 50's'' book specifically because this made it famous.
* ArchieComics works on the same premise of recycled plots as Superman, etc; they have kept the Riverdale gang in high school for over 65 years now...
** These comics take it one step further. About 80 percent of any given new Archie Comic will be stories lifted directly from earlier issues, although with some dialogue and panels edited to prevent ValuesDissonance.
** Strangely, it seems that the majority of its readers nowadays are people who have been reading it ever since they were kids.

* One of the reasons {{MTV}} has maintained its popularity over time is that it elected not to follow its original audience (the teenagers of the eighties and early nineties) into adulthood, instead opting to always focus its marketing on the current generation of teenagers. (Whether its ''[[NetworkDecay quality]]'' has also been maintained is a matter best left for debate elsewhere.)
** ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' lampshaded this by having a quick reference to ''Film/LogansRun'' that involved microchip-implanted [=VJs=] that alerted the execs to send in a new show host whenever the original person became a ChristmasCake.
* Up until around 2007 or so, The Disney Channel had an explicit policy of cancelling shows – animated and live-action – after 65 episodes, regardless of popularity. The first show to avoid the episode-limit cancellation was ''KimPossible'' due to huge fan outcry (and, allegedly, the contract with the German network that ran the show). [[SixtyFiveEpisodeCartoon This concept]] was an idea held over from the 1980's and the rise of syndication and the early children's cable networks: 65 was the number of episodes you needed for a show to be successfully syndicated[[note]] The idea is that another network would buy the syndication package and run one episode every weekday for three months (one calendar season). Other "magic syndication numbers" include 52 from the SaturdayMorningCartoon days (one episode every Saturday for a year), and the ubiquitous 100[[/note]], and kids will probably watch repeats anyway so why make more? Also, since kids' tastes change so fast, they expected that no child would stick with a show for more than three seasons regardless.
** It's worth noting that the probable reason for ''KimPossible'' being such a popular show is its MultipleDemographicAppeal.
** The endless tween sitcoms on DisneyChannel ([[ThatsSoRaven the oldest of them]] only had a span of slightly more than four years) used to go (and occasionally still go) this way as well. Of course, that's also about how long young actors can convincingly play "tweenage" without going into DawsonCasting.
* ''PowerRangers'': Although the show does have its older fans, the general demographic is young boys who will grow out of the show after a few years, which is probably why the show started doing the new storyline every year thing instead of the continuing storyline it used to do. Since this is exactly what happens in the Japanese couterpart, ''SuperSentai'', no one seems to mind.

** ''SaturdayNightLive'' has a very similar relationship with its audience.

* Hello, HilaryDuff! Or MileyCyrus! Or... well, pick any tween musician. They're going to be around for a couple years until their current fans get older, at which point the next one comes along.
** Most of these girls turn out to be [[ContractualPurity their own fleeting demographic]].

* One of the reasons why "Oldies" radio stations (ie. radio stations devoted to rock and roll made from the mid-50's until about the early-70's) became increasingly sparse around the TurnOfTheMillennium was because radio executives noticed their target demographic was aging significantly and was, thus, no longer considered profitable.
** The PopularityPolynomial dictates that oldies/classic rock stations will be roughly TwoDecadesBehind the current trends. So HairMetal became increasingly popular on classic rock stations during TheNoughties, and now {{Grunge}} is taking its place, just like it did in mainstream radio [[TheNineties twenty years ago]].

* Manga/{{Doraemon}} {{remake}}s its anime series and, occasionally, movies every decade or so for precisely this reason.

* Main/{{Doraemon}}.

* In the UK, twee/teen dramas ''Series/GrangeHill'' and ''BykerGrove'' both had this. Both shows ran for long enough that their original target demographic became utterly periphery, but never completely left the show behind. Unfortunately, the BBC execs decided to shift the target demographic down towards ''even younger'' children, resulting in a complete loss of interest from ''all'' demographics, and the eventual cancellations of both shows.

** Continuing with the cycles of the PopularityPolynomial, many radio stations now play "Oldies" from the [[TheEighties 80's]] and [[TheNineties 90's]], catering to a new generation demographic that is replacing the old one.

* ''Series/BarneyAndFriends'', ''{{Teletubbies}}'' and most other "preschool"-oriented shows. While earlier examples like ''SesameStreet'' had enough ParentalBonus to benefit from the NostalgiaFilter, the success of ''Barney'' led to a trend in the '90s of making these shows as plotless and repetitive as possible, out of the belief that that made them more suitable for the target audience. Now that those original toddler "fans" are teens and young adults, they want as little to do with these shows as their parents and older siblings did.

** Continuing with the cycles of the PopularityPolynomial, many radio stations now play "Oldies" from the [[TheEgihties 80's]] and [[TheNineties 90's]], catering to a new generation demographic that is replacing the old one.

A show intended for a certain audience with a clearly defined demographic. Essentially, this means the audience may begin to watch the show at a certain age, but at some point will abandon it later, [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment presumably in the future]]. This applies to many shows for children. The 'original' target audience simply [[GrowingUpSucks outgrows]] the show.

!!Examples:

[[folder: Anime and Manga ]]

** [[Anime/BraveCommandDagwon Dagwon]] actually had a slightly different problem - it was made to cash in on [[Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion Evangelion]], and the overall feel of the stories was frequently closer to {{Ultraman}} than anything else. If anything, the target audience ''had'' to grow up a bit to appreciate it.