In the final years of radio's role as the nation's music tastemaker, American pedestrian superhost Ryan Seacrest replaced Casey Kasem as DJ of “American Top 40.” As Dick Clark faded from his status as the nation's faithful New Year's Eve companion, Seacrest followed him. Seacrest succeeded legendary Los Angeles morning radio DJ Rick Dees and legendary morning talk show TV host Regis Philbin. And now, as broadcast TV draws to a close as a bond-builder in America's living rooms, Seacrest has been tapped to replace Pat Sajak, who hosted “Wheel of Fortune” after a mind-boggling 41 years.
Though he once said he had no real talent, Seacrest has performed reasonably well, both as a replacement for aging celebrities and as the host of “American Idol.” At 49, he's no teen idol, but his widespread popularity and relative innocence to a generation raised in the country's fraying monoculture make him a reliable successor to the baby-boomer establishment.
In an era of political polarization, eroding trust in traditional institutions, and a loss of local connection, America's celebrity apparatus is struggling to produce stars with the appeal to bridge generational, political, and class divides. The result is an increasingly aging culture, driven not only by the baby boomer population but also by a technological revolution that has diminished the role of gatekeepers in media, politics, and the economy.
YouTube, social media, and Spotify are more democratic purveyors of pop culture than Dick Clark, Ed Sullivan, or Larry King, but they haven't produced any once-famous figures. As a result, of the 10 most popular TV personalities measured by YouGov, all are dead or over 65 years old, from late-night quiz show hosts Alex Trebek and Bob Barker to retired late-night hosts David Letterman and Jay Leno, to veteran TV personalities Vanna White and Steve Harvey. You have to go all the way down to No. 15 to find Jimmy Fallon, a 49-year-old brute.
Ah, but linear TV is disappearing before our eyes, you say. And while that's true, even the stars of TV's most popular shows now barely budge on likability scales, according to Steve Levitt, president of Marketing Ratings, which creates the Q Scores that sponsors use to measure a celebrity's emotional appeal.
“People are attached to Yellowstone and its cast, but they don't really know who they are,” Levitt told me. “Now, recognition for stars of big TV shows is in the 30 percent range,” compared with 60 percent for Sajak and 70 percent for Seacrest. “Where is the next star going to come from? It's a tough call.”
While Trebek was known by nearly everyone, his successor on “Jeopardy!”, Ken Jennings, is one of the most successful contestants in game show history, yet only 45 percent of those surveyed recognized him. And in terms of favorability, Jennings' negative attributes are twice as high as his positive attributes.
If the combination of famous name and unpopular personality sounds familiar, consider politics. Whoever wins will put a widely unpopular octogenarian in the White House for another term. America's aging power structures are ancient, from the Senate, whose average age is at an all-time high, to health care, to big business, to much of the economy.
This phenomenon is most evident in the entertainment world, with the exception of sports and music, where most people solidify their fanbases and musical tastes at a young age, resulting in a natural turnover of stars. (Still, music's top performers are disproportionately older: Three of the 10 highest-grossing concert tours of all time have starred older performers, including the Rolling Stones and Elton John in their later years.)
Hollywood may be the most extreme example of the aging of American star power. Last year's movies featured actors older than the baby boomer generation. Eighty-year-old Robert De Niro starred in a film directed by 80-year-old Martin Scorsese. Eighty-one-year-old Harrison Ford starred in the fifth Indiana Jones adventure. Tom Cruise continues to undertake seemingly impossible missions well into his sixties. When asked which actors moviegoers are most likely to attend the cinema, the top 20 picks included two actors in their 80s and none under 35.
This cultural shift reflects a demographic shift: Within the next decade, the number of people over 65 in the United States will outnumber those under 18, the opposite of what is happening to everyone currently alive.
The good news is that fresh ideas and compelling ministars are thriving online, and influencers and creators are getting a foothold in the attention economy. But outside of the Super Bowl, there are few mass audiences left. Seacrest took over from “Wheel,” whose viewership has fallen from a peak of 40 million in the 1980s to about 9 million a night.
Popular culture, whether in politics or entertainment, can be as banal as Seacrest. But the shared experiences and inspiration generated by popular figures we admire can also bring us together. The country would be politically and culturally healthier to some degree if we had more options after people like Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Oprah Winfrey, and Tom Hanks leave the stage. But the days of Walter Cronkite, Johnny Carson, and Bob Barker are not coming back. The next generation of unifying figures will have to coalesce from the debris of fractured communities.
