Boomers in the Spotlight

By Mark Mills

We at Boomers TV are constantly scanning the headlines, clicking around the dial, and surfing the net for news and information about the Boomer generation. These days, it’s becoming a full-time job.

Last week ABC’s Good Morning America weighed in with an excellent story about the Boomer zeitgeist. Claire Shipman’s report, Boomtimes for Boomers, wove a variety of Boomer trends around the story of Suzanne Somers turning 60. The story looked at sexuality, health, work, travel, volunteerism, and the Boomers’ abysmal lack of retirement savings.

The report highlighted the growth in products designed for and marketed to Boomers, including a high tech bed that keeps track of your vital signs, and a computer phone that displays who you are talking to and reminds you what your recent phone calls were about.

Boomers are getting more attention from marketers these days. Uber commentator Ken Dychtwald noted, “It turns out young people are kind of broke; it’s their parents who have the money.”

The GMA story even cited our public TV program, Boomers! Redefining Life After Fifty, as an example of heightened media interest in Boomer trends.

Punch the term Boomers into Google’s news search engine and you’ll find links to dozens of stories about Boomers reshaping markets for everything from home building and automobile design to medical devices and cosmetic surgery.

While marketers have traditionally jettisoned 50+ Americans to the “dead zone,” they are waking up to the fact that Boomers are aging actively...that we want to stay fit, keep in style, accomplish new goals and take in new experiences. We have money to spend and a willingness to try new products.

We may not be as tech savvy as our kids, but we are buying iPods, downloading music, emailing photos, publishing blogs, and Tivo-ing our favorite shows when we go out dancing.

Boomers have broken the rules and broken new ground at every stage of our lives, and we are at it again. If the media are any indication, the world is starting to figure that out.

Transitions to "Retirement"

by Nancy Mills


Until we have a new name for it, we will still refer to the time of life after full time, earn-as-much-as-you-can careers as "retirement." Most Boomers we meet are thinking not about traditonal retirement but about life options: a new career, a small business, a combination of volunteering and working part-time. And having some fun too!

What does it take to make a smooth and successful transition to whatever is next? There's a new study out that gives a name to the stages involved in moving into retirement. Working with Age Wave's Ken Dychtwald, Ph.D., Ameriprise Financial uncovered five distinct phases and the feelings that accompany them:

Stage One: Imagination - from 15 to 6 years before retirement, positive feelings, looking forward to adventure and empowerment
Stage Two: Anticipation - 5 years before retirement, feeling dreams are closer but worries and anxieties mounting
Stage Three: Liberation - Retiring and feeling excited about it
Stage Four: Reorientaion - 2 to 15 years after retirement, joy is passing, feelings of emptiness, boredom, or worry mounting, an emotional let-down.
Stage Five: Reconciliation - 16 or more years after retirement, increased contentment, more acceptance and personal reflection

This study is valuable for Boomers. Many of us are in Stage One or Two. We can learn from those who have gone before us. There is value in envisioning the life we want and then planning for it.

But life is a process and one saying that I try to remember is: "Planning is invaluable but plans are useless." The meaning for me is that we can make all the plans we want but then "life happens." We can set our intentions, do our best and then let go of the outcome. And maybe we should try to move to Stage Five - the time of personal reflection - a little sooner.

What stage are you in? Comments always welcomed!

Behind the Scenes

By Nancy Mills

Mark and I have fun being in front of the camera, representing the team here at Boomers! But the only way we can do our job is with a lot of support from some very talented people.

Meet three team members who are the backbone of our company.

Michael Azevedo is our Line Producer and Webmaster. He keeps the TV trains running on time and helps us create new content and get it up on our website. And Michael seems to have heard about every book ever written, every movie ever produced and every song ever recorded!

Gino Mauro is our Series Editor and general technical guru. He juggles lots of video and audio and graphics and keeps track of it all with good sense and good humor. He also knows where to get the best pizza in Boston!

Katie Gulde is our woman-of –many- talents who can publish an online newsletter, plan a party and find any piece of video in our library at the same time! She’s always smiling and always stylin! We can count on Katie to do just about anything that needs to get done.

We’re lucky to have these folks in Boomers! TV land. Yeah team!

See the team in action below: Michael, Gino, & Katie (in that order)

Celebration Time!

Well it’s official. After two years of planning, shooting, editing, sweating and worrying, the Boomers! series is on the air. Time to celebrate with our cast and crew. See us having fun at the Milky Way Lounge and Bowling Alley below!

It was a little over two years ago that I sat at my desk daydreaming about the next stage of my life. At the age of 58, when, where and how to retire were on my mind more frequently. With thirty plus years of television production under my belt, I thought about how cool it would be to work on a series about where I might live next and what I might be doing there. And what will my fellow Boomers be doing, where will they want to live, will they retire and how can we all keep having fun?

One of the perks of working in television production is that you get to travel to lots of places and meet interesting people while getting paid. Why not get paid to work on a series about the issues I had on my mind? I did an Internet search to see what kinds of programs were out there for the Boomer demographic. Surprise, surprise, there were none!

So I decided to take some action. I created a rough outline for a series and made a call to an old friend, John Carver, who had done a lot of fundraising over the years for PBS shows. He liked the idea for a Boomers magazine show and signed on.

I thought about who I'd like to work with producing this show. That’s how Mark and Nancy Mills became involved. We put a proposal together, threw in a ton of sweat equity, shot and edited our pilot show on no budget.

Several months later, Fidelity Investments and Pulte/Del Webb Homes agreed to fund the series and here we are today. We went out to celebrate Saturday night in advance of the series premier in Boston Sunday morning. Even though I’d seen the show many times, it was pretty amazing to see it on my own TV. I talked with Nancy after the show and we both felt great about our team and about having a series that we hope will be meaningful for other Boomers.

Coming up with ideas for television shows is easy. Getting something funded, produced and on the air is difficult. But every once in a while, with the right idea at the right time, dreams can come true.

Thanks for watching. Spread the word. Now that we’ve got the first 13 shows done, we're already dreaming about our second season.

Bill Charette, Creator, Director of Photography and Executive Producer

Photos from party at Milky Way Lounge, Jamaica Plain, MA


Bill Charette, Nancy Mills, and producer Paul Stern


Mark and Nancy get ready to bowl


Audio guy John Osborne and internet guru Dan Bricklin


Party animals from the Boomers! music team


Mark being interviewed by Dan Bricklin for a podcast. Dan, co-creator of the first PC spreadsheet, has a huge following on his web site. A year ago Dan helped us get our blog started. You can see his report on the Boomers! party and listen to the podcast at Dan Bricklin's Log.