For three decades, prime-time television has been obsessed with appealing to younger viewers for the benefit of advertisers. But this youthquake may show signs of abating -- at least a little.

• On Wednesday, cable network WE debuts "Sunset Daze," a reality series set in an Arizona retirement community.

• In June, TV Land premieres "Hot in Cleveland," a sitcom co-starring 88-year-old Betty White.

• Network series in development for fall include "[Stuff] My Dad Says," based on a Twitter feed by a 29-year-old guy who posts the acerbic witticisms of his 73-year-old father (William Shatner).

• In early 2011, TV Land will debut the sitcom "Retired at 35," about a young businessman who leaves New York to live with his parents (George Segal and Jessica Walter) in their Florida retirement community.

"The population is getting older, and the median age [of broadcast network viewers] is the highest it's ever been," said Brad Adgate, senior vice president for research at New York media buying firm Horizon Media. CBS skews oldest at 55, followed by ABC (52), NBC (51), Fox (46) and The CW (34).

Advertisers continue to covet younger viewers under the assumption that it's better to hook a buyer on a product when he is 20 to benefit from 60 years of sales, Mr. Adgate said. Generally, younger people spend less time watching TV; older people spend more time watching TV. Because young viewers are more difficult to reach, advertisers will pay a premium to advertise on shows with youth appeal, which is why most networks target viewers ages 18-34 or 18-49.

With ratings for broadcast networks down, some channels may be happy for any success.

ABC's "Dancing with the Stars" is not as much of a demographic hit, skewing older than Fox's "American Idol," which in a recent telecast drew 9.6 million viewers ages 18-49 compared with "Dancing," which was watched by 6.3 million viewers in the same demo. But "Dancing" can draw 7 million more viewers than the more demographically desirable "Glee," a show about a high school glee club that drew 13 million viewers in its spring premiere earlier this month.

Because advertisers covet younger viewers, "Idol" remains the ad sales champ, drawing $642,000 for a 30-second commercial. "Dancing" charged $209,000 for an ad in its fall edition, the most recently available numbers from The Nielsen Co.

"Sometimes [network executives will] overlook a show with an older audience profile for a show that will get big numbers," Mr. Adgate said. That's probably most true for cable networks striving to get noticed.

WE senior vice president John Miller said it's too early to know what ratings "Sunset Daze" will generate when it premieres, but he said, "If ratings are high, we'd hope to see a cumulative effect so even if it's an older demo, that doesn't necessarily mean failure. The press we're getting is wonderful for the channel in general."

Last summer at the TV critics press tour, TV Land president Larry Jones said his network planned to add scripted comedies designed to appeal to the network's target audience: viewers 40-54, with age 48 as the network's "sweet spot." The average age for a TV Land viewer is 53, according to a Nielsen Co. report. Mr. Jones described TV Land viewership as 52 percent female, 48 percent male.

The network's recent forays into shows targeting these viewers have been reality shows such as "First Love, Second Chance," about former lovers who attempt to rekindle their romance when they are older.

"Nobody is making shows specifically for the 45- or 48-year-olds, and we see a huge opportunity for that," Mr. Jones said last year.

Ms. White has become more popular than ever in the past year from her role in the movie "The Proposal," an appearance in a popular candy bar commercial that aired during the Super Bowl and a Facebook group demand that she be invited to host "Saturday Night Live." (She will on May 8). So her casting in the TV Land sitcom is perhaps less notable than three other sitcom veterans tapped.

"Hot in Cleveland" stars Valerie Bertinelli ("One Day at a Time"), 50; Jane Leeves ("Frasier"), 49; and Wendy Malick ("Just Shoot Me"), 59, as three friends who get stuck in Ohio and discover they don't face the age discrimination they are accustomed to in Los Angeles.

Although dramas starring older women began to gain in network favor a few years ago as Glenn Close, 63; Holly Hunter, 52; and Kyra Sedgwick, 44; were cast as series leads in "Damages," "Saving Grace" and "The Closer," respectively, sitcoms headlined by women outside the networks' 18-49 target demo have been few since "The Golden Girls" premiered in 1985.

AARP welcomes members at age 50, and Hugh Delehanty, editor in chief for AARP publications, said television's approach to the portrayal of older Americans has been changing for about a decade. He points to Ms. Close's starring role in "Damages" and the TNT series "Men of a Certain Age" -- starring Scott Bakula, 55; Ray Romano, 52; and Andre Braugher, 47 -- as examples of that change.

"I think there's been an incredible amount of success on the cable front," Mr. Delehanty said, pointing to USA's "Monk," which ended last year after a successful seven-year run that began when star Tony Shalhoub was 49.

"Suddenly they were creating big audiences with a cable show. What used to be an offbeat idea became, 'Oh my God, you can do a show with a 50-year-old in it and it becomes extremely successful.'"

TNT renewed "Men of a Certain Age" for a second season, but FX's "Damages" is unlikely to return for a fourth season because it draws too few viewers overall and the viewers who do tune in are older.

Mr. Delehanty praised the growing sophistication of TV show narratives, particularly cable shows created by baby boomers -- most notably HBO's "The Sopranos."

"You've got a lot of [older] characters in critical roles," Mr. Delehanty said. "I think it says something about the audience as well. They don't want to be excluded. They don't want to be the doddering aunt in the corner. The old stereotype of the white-haired woman or man used to be the model in television."

It's a given that as people live longer, they're more active longer. Baby boomers and even "people in their 60s and 70s are living a lot differently than people were in the past," Mr. Delehanty said.

That approach to life is front-and-center in WE's "Sunset Daze," which follows seniors on dates and assorted adventures (a former nun sky-dives).

"I would say there was an epiphany: Why hasn't anyone done this before?" said WE's Mr. Miller. "I think people were slow to realize that [seniors] are more like us and there's less of a disconnect."

To be sure, WE does not target the elderly; its prime demo is women 18-49, similar to the age group sought by most broadcast networks.

Shows don't necessarily target viewers who are the same ages as a program's stars, Mr. Miller said.

"These people [in 'Sunset Daze'] are dealing with a lot of the same issues our viewers are, just at different points in their lives. Interesting, fun, charismatic people you want to spend a half-hour with are key to any great TV show, reality or scripted."

Mr. Miller said the success of "Golden Girls" reruns on WE -- "it's one of our younger-skewing shows" -- also encouraged the development of "Sunset Daze."

The fact that younger viewers have been watching "Golden Girls" reruns also plays a role in Ms. White's recent ubiquity. That sense of pop culture permanence also explains the perpetual casting of Mr. Shatner, 79, who in 2008 finished a four-year run on ABC's "Boston Legal." In addition to a starring role in a CBS pilot, Mr. Shatner will host a Discovery Channel series about unsolved mysteries called "Weird or What."

"Betty White didn't come out of nowhere," Mr. Miller said. "People have been putting her in movies and TV shows for a reason: She's funny as hell. It's the comedy of somebody being different from expectation or different from a stereotypical older person. Stereotypes will be shattered and we're just seeing [older people] as part of our culture."

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