[abb]

"By the end of this decade or shortly thereafter, television networks as we know them today will cease to exist. They will be just another url on the world wide web competing against millions of others."

"Network evening newscasts will go dark after the '08 elections and their news divisions disbanded."

Walter Abbott, (b. 1950), Media observer and commentator

[abb]

ping

[Mrs.Z]

Forget newscasts...

I have 500 channels and NOTHING TO WATCH but the US Open this weekend (maybe Fox at night a little)

Fortunately it’s summer...so who cares.

[PeterPrinciple]

suggests millions of TV viewers either don’t care, or are still perplexed

---

I wonder which it is.......................

[N. Theknow]

If “broadcast-only” is the extent of what one can receive....why bother?

[Alex Murphy]

Days after their analog TV signals went dark, 2.2% of U.S. households still haven't bothered to hook up to digital reception, according to estimates released Wednesday by Nielsen Co. Even more troubling, the estimates are based on households in Nielsen's national and local TV ratings panels, which means that more than 2% of Nielsen's panel is reporting zero TV usage in the days following the conversion.

Ping for later

[Lockbox]

and the answer is...............

they can't tell the difference in the broadcast quality

[Leg Olam]

Neilsen is dead. With digital the viewers are being tabulated. Its a two way system. Welcome to 1984.

[CholeraJoe]

2% of households are stealing cable from their neighbors anyway.

[tiki]

They didn’t mention those who are receiving illegal signals, it must be more than I thought.

[ctdonath2]

more than 2% of Nielsen's panel is reporting zero TV usage in the days following the conversion.

And that's not including those who went to zero TV usage pre-conversion for other reasons. I moved 3 years ago, didn't get around to installing cable (broadcast was unwatchably fuzzy) for a long time, and repeatedly balked at the price ($50/mo for dreck? no!) - still don't have it, don't intend to, Netflix + Internet is enough.

[ConservativeMind]

Even more troubling, the estimates are based on households in Nielsen's national and local TV ratings panels, which means that more than 2% of Nielsen's panel is reporting zero TV usage in the days following the conversion.

LOL! That is freaking funny!

[EternalVigilance]

Television? What’s that?

[arthurus]

That 2.2% might be the folks who haven’t turned on the box for some years now and haven’t bothered to throw the damned thing out. I chucked my home’s last one 21 years ago. After a couple of months without, no one missed it and only one out of my 4 children cares anything for TV as an adult, partly because he married a TV addict. The daughter who works as a producer at a TV station does not watch TV.

[razorboy]

I think they just over estimated the number of people who would be affected. I think they’ve been running with the assumption that anybody without cable or satellite that didn’t get one of the vouchers would not have handled things themselves. Government tends to over estimate it’s importance like that.

[SamAdams76]

One thing I've noticed over the past 10 years is that television is viewed more and more by the lower socio-economic classes of our society. Most people of higher socio-economic classes have long since moved on to other recreational pursuits (i.e. Internet, video-on-demand, etc.)

This does not bode well for advertising in this media so you will likely continue to see a downward spiral in the quality of people who view television and increasingly, sponsors will opt for other media so that they can target more affluent consumers.

This cannot happen soon enough as I think the programmers of television have already sunk to the lowest common denominator. After a while, even the Taco Bells and Budweisers of the world will find this remaining audience not worth their advertising dollars.