‘Younger’ Renewed For Second Season By TV Land

Four episodes into Younger‘s freshman season, TV Land has renewed the single-camera comedy for a second season with a 12-episode order. Created and executive produced by Darren  Star, Younger stars Sutton Foster, Hilary Duff, Debi Mazar, Miriam Shor and Nico Tortorella.

Younger is TV Land’s second original single-camera comedy series, following Jennifer Falls, which lasted one season. The network has a number of other new single-camera originals on tap, including Impastor and Teachers, as it has been looking to move away from traditional sitcoms to edgier, younger-skewing fare that would involve more urgency for viewing.

“Younger is the first step in TV Land’s evolution, and we are very proud to announce a second season,” said Keith Cox, EVP of Development and Original Programming for TV Land.

Younger has not been a breakout in the traditional ratings sense, debuting with 0.17 adults 18-49 rating and 504,000 viewers, which was below TV Land’s multi-camera premieres and likely Jennifer Falls. But the show has been a priority for TV Land and parent Viacom, and it was launched on three networks, TV Land and siblings Nick at Nite and Nick Jr., with the premiere episode drawing a total of 1.4 million (0.37 rating in the demo). By episode 4, the TV Land Live+same day delivery had slipped to 344,000 viewers (0.11 in 18-49) though the secondary Nick at Nite telecast did far better, 644,000 viewers (0.2).

In the renewal release, TV Land touts Younger‘s total reach, claiming that the comedy has been viewed by a cumed 20 million people across multiple networks and multiple platforms, including TV Land, Nick at Nite, Hulu, VOD and TVLand.com. (All episodes of the show are available for free on Hulu and TVLand.com). The cable network also points out the show’s solid reviews as well as its growth on social media, including a +70% increase of likes on Facebook and a +63% increase of followers on Instagram. Achieving social media engagement for their shows has been important for TV Land brass and one of the goals for the transition to single-camera fare.

Younger follows Liza (Foster), a 40-year old woman who pretends to be 26 in order to get a job in the highly competitive world of publishing – and succeeds. Now working under the prickly Diana (Shor), Liza has to figure out how to balance her real life with bestie Maggie (Mazar), and her “pretend” life with new friend and coworker Kelsey (Duff)…all while embarking on an exciting and somewhat confusing relationship with sexy tattoo artist Josh (Tortorella).

The first season, shot in Brooklyn and New York City, features guest starring appearances by Jane Krakowski, Ana Gasteyer, Martha Plimpton, Peter Hermann and Kathy Najimy. Episode 5 of Younger‘s first season airs tonight. The season finale is set for June 9.