A post for the ages

Been chewing over Chad Mosher's post at about.com on possible age discrimination by game shows in selecting contestants. As you might expect, the bias works against older contestants, not younger ones. The twenty-something Chad, young enough to be my son and in fact younger than my real son, finally decides that, yeah, game shows don't much care for older contestants any more.

I agree, but I can understand why. The real age problem dogging traditional game shows is among viewers, not contestants. The demos don't lie. Studio-based game shows skew older than the pyramids (Egyptian, not Bob Stewart-ian). So I can't really blame game shows for trying to fight the lethal skew with less wrinkled contestants.

In most industries such shenanigans would be blatantly illegal and might well spawn a blizzard of lawsuits. The gaping exception in the age-discrimination laws for the entertainment industry avoids that pain. It helps to have well-connected lobbyists and deep pockets for political contributions.

Chad's post reminds me of Betty White's ill-considered remarks about the supposed faults of younger folks on the late, lamented Million Dollar Password. Chad doesn't mention it but he was one of the aspersed young'uns on that show. He played very well, by the way.