> "This may be the spring where we see a radical shift in the way the
> culture thinks of watching TV," said Sarah Bunting, co-founder of the
> Web site Television Without Pity.
>
> The viewer plunge couldn't have come at a worse time for the networks-
> next week they will showcase their fall schedules to advertisers in
> the annual "up front" presentations.
>
> The networks argue that viewership is changing, not necessarily
> declining. Some advertisers respond that they are no longer willing to
> pay full price up front to reach viewers that may not tune in later.
>
> This fall, both sides will be watching what happens with families like
> Tony Cort's. During prime-time, Cort, his wife and four kids tend to
> scatter to computers or other activities in different parts of their
> New Jersey home. (Not during "American Idol" or "Lost," though.)
> They're definitely watching less TV, said Cort, who runs a Web site
> for martial arts aficionados.
>
> "I remember when `24' was on, that was something there was a lot of
> interest and excitement about," he said.
>
> News flash: "24" is still on. Its ratings are down, too, amid a
> critically savaged season.
>
> More bad news abounds. NBC set a record last month for its least-
> watched week during the past 20 years, and maybe ever-then broke it a
> week later. This is the least popular season ever for CBS' "Survivor."
> ABC's "Lost" has lost nearly half its live audience-more than 10
> million people-from the days it was a sensation. "The Sopranos" is
> ending on HBO, and the response is a collective yawn.
>
> Events like "American Idol" on Fox (which is owned by News Corp.) and
> "Dancing With the Stars" on ABC (owned by The Walt Disney Co.) are
> doing the most to prop up the industry. But still, in the six weeks
> after Daylight Savings Time started in early March, prime-time
> viewership for the four biggest broadcast networks was down to 37.6
> million people, from 40.3 million during the same period in 2006,
> according to Nielsen Media Research.
>
> Millions of missing viewers could translate into millions of missing
> dollars for the networks heading into the up-front sales season.
>
> Advertisers don't believe that the drop in viewership is as dramatic
> as the numbers suggest, but they're no longer willing to spend what
> they once did in the spring market, said Brad Adgate of Horizon Media,
> an ad buying firm. Johnson & Johnson and Coca-Cola sat out the spring
> market last year-betting they could get lower prices later-and it's
> likely other companies will do the same this year, he said.
>
> The early start to Daylight Savings Time has hurt ratings. Prime-time
> viewership traditionally dips then as people do more things outside,
> and this year folks had a three-week head start to get into the habit
> of doing something else. More network reruns during March and April
> dampened interest, too.
>
> "We let them get out of the habit of watching television a little bit,
> and it's going to take some time to get these people back in front of
> their television sets," said David Poltrack, chief researcher for CBS
> (owned by CBS Corp.).
>
> Strategic decisions to send some popular serial dramas on long
> hiatuses appeared to backfire. NBC's "Heroes," CBS' "Jericho" and
> "Lost" lost significant momentum when they returned. Besides HBO's
> "The Sopranos," there are no lengthy countdowns toward the end of very
> popular series, unless you count "The King of Queens."
>
> There also are technical reasons that this apparent diminished
> interest in television may be overstated.
>
> This year, for the first time, Nielsen is measuring viewership in the
> estimated 17 percent of homes with digital video recorders-but it only
> counts them in the ratings of a specific show if they watch it within
> 24 hours of the original air time.
>
> If you recorded "Desperate Housewives" this spring and watched it two
> days later, you're not counted in the show's ratings. And you're not
> counted by Nielsen under any circumstances if you downloaded a show on
> iTunes and watched it on your iPod or cell phone, or streamed an
> episode from a network Web site.
>
> Since last year's Nielsen sample contained no DVR homes and this
> year's sample does, logic dictates that fewer Nielsen families are
> watching TV live this year, deflating ratings.
>
> "People are not consuming less television, they're watching it in
> different ways, and the measurements haven't caught up," said Alan
> Wurtzel, chief research executive at NBC (owned by General Electric
> Co.).
>
> The numbers can be significant. When "The Office" aired on NBC on
> April 5, Nielsen said there were 5.8 million people watching. Add in
> the people who recorded the episode and watched it within the next
> week, and viewership swelled to 7.6 million, a 32 percent increase,
> Nielsen said.
>
> "The Sopranos" is another interesting case study. For its first four
> episodes this season, the show averaged 7.4 million viewers for its
> weekly Sunday night premiere, down from 8.9 million at the same point
> its last season.
>
> But HBO shows each new episode eight times a week. Between the
> multiple plays and DVR viewing, each episode this spring gets 11.1
> million viewers, down from 13 million last year. And these figures
> don't count people who watch on demand.
>
> Numbers for "The Sopranos" may be down because people can watch
> whenever they want. They may not be as interested in the show as they
> used to be-or it could be a combination of both.
>
> Television has made billions based on how many people watch a show at
> its regular time. That idea may already be obsolete. So should the
> industry use DVR viewing when setting ad rates? If so, how quickly
> must people watch the shows-within two days? A week? What about people
> who watch shows on their cell phones or on network Web sites, which
> Nielsen doesn't measure yet? Later this month Nielsen will begin
> measuring how many people watch commercials. Should those be used to
> compute advertising costs?
>
> Right now, none of those questions have answers.
>
> However, "if we continue to do business assuming people will watch
> television as they always have," said NBC's Wurtzel, "it's a dead-end
> game."
>
>
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8P0F6RG0&show_article=1
>
> Pointed out by the mighty Drudge man.
>
http://drudgereport.com/
>
