Posted on 06/02/2011 3:17:10 AM PDT by abb
Fewer young people watched TV on traditional sets over the past television season, the second consecutive year of decline as viewers face a proliferation of ways to watch TV shows.
U.S. TV networks marked the official end of the TV season on Wednesday with a flurry of widely viewed send-offs, including the last episode of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and the season finale of "American Idol." But those big programs are closing out a TV season in which few new shows became hits, and ratings for the four most-watched networks fell.
At any given time of day, about 25.1 million people between 18 and 49 years old were watching TV of any kindlive or recorded, broadcast or cable this TV season through May 8, according to Nielsen Co. That number is down 1.4% from the same period a year earlier, and 2.7% from two years ago.
Although the overall TV audience grew 1.5%, to roughly 61.3 million people watching at any given time of day, the continued decline among younger viewers is unusual in a medium that for years has seen generally growing consumption.
The four most-watched broadcast networks have been among the hardest hit. Roughly 3.6 million people between 18 and 49 years old watched prime-time shows on the four biggest broadcast networks this TV season through May 22, down 9% from a year earlier, Nielsen said.
The only major broadcast network to see its audience expand this TV season was No. 5 Univision, which has benefited from a growing Hispanic population. Through Wednesday, the Spanish-language network said it averaged 1.9 million viewers between the ages of 18 and 49 years old, up 7.6% from a year earlier.
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(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Netflix
It's not even worth it anymore, I only start watching series after they are completed now, because I am so tired of it at this point.
WOW is my reaction! I suspect this is not that unusual.
How does he earn a living? Or learn anything usable at college? Sounds like a hard life ahead for him or whomever is supporting him while he plays.
Have you looked at the crap in their lineups lately? If it’s not a ballgame or a good old movie I’m generally not interested.
Hollywood’s almost 100% liberal. Americans are 50% liberal at best... That might be part of the problem...
I mean really...
You can only watch Terminator 1/2/3/4/5, Jurassic Park 1/2/3/4/5, Rocky 1/2/3/4/5, Rambo 1/2/3/4/5, Star Wars 1/2/3/4/5, X-Men 1/2/3/4/5, Alien 1/2/3/4/5, etc, so many times a week before you have to go the john and puke.
Very true. These fools don’t have an original idea in their heads.
Bravo.
I 86ed my TV in 1973 and never looked back. Aside from missing the point of a few TV-culture memes, easily researched if I care, I don’t miss it at all.
“Fed up” is right, Civ.
Who is this Oprah Winfrey?
That too! I don’t have it (I think it’s built-in to the BluRay player), but I do watch disks almost exclusively — buy ‘em cheap new or used, or get them out of the library.
I cancelled tv service a long time ago. It is not missed.
:’)
We have a Western Digital web streaming box. It allows us to watch Netflix and hundreds of other wedsite content on our TV. We paid about $100 for the box $9 amonth for Netflix.
I do not miss cable at all.
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