As odd as this sounds, basic cabler A&E, the network that brings you such television treasures as Hoarders, Epic Ink and Storage Wars, has just canceled its second most popular show, the Wyoming country detective drama Longmire. Why would the network make such a strange move after three successful seasons? Because, while Longmire averages 5.6 million viewers per episode, (second only to the network’s ever popular Duck Dynasty) its millions of viewers are just too old. That, and since the show is produced by Time Warner and not the network itself, Longmire is also too expensive, according to The Wall Street Journal’s Joe Flint.

Now I admit I’ve never watched Longmire, an hour-long drama based on the Craig Johnson mysteries and starring Robert Taylor and Katee Sackhoff, but I can’t help but be irked by the fact A&E values younger viewers of “reality” shows like Cement Heads and Love Prison, over Baby Boomers who command the majority of the nation’s disposable income, and, by the way, watch more TV than any other demo. I understand that scripted television is much more expensive to produce than reality, but A&E is keeping Bates Motel around despite lower ratings…mostly because it attracts younger viewers. Longmire‘s median viewer age is 60, while the network as whole has a median viewer age of 48, as Flint points out in his terrific article.

It seems that A&E (like most networks) sells advertising time on its shows in two major demographic categories: 18-49 and 25-54, and Longmire‘s viewers are a little older than that. I understand that no network has an obligation to Baby Boomers, and that most of their decisions are based on financial expedience. But it hurts to be told that my attention and money are not as valuable as that of younger people. The producers of Longmire are attempting to take the show to another network, and I wish them well with that. And I hope they take their almost six million viewers with them.