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 kind—live 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 ...
The gamers are having an effect on this. My son (21 years old) spends 40 hours a week with WOW...and I doubt if he watches more than four hours a week of any TV at all.
“The gamers are having an effect on this.”
Bingo.
It’s the “Fed Up With Their Partisan Shilling” demographic.
It’s not just the networks losing viewers, it’s dish and cable as well.
Thanks abb.
10-4 on losing satellite, we disconnected some time ago and cannot receive free tv nor want to pay for more liberal propaganda via cable. Enough.
10-4 on losing satellite, we disconnected some time ago and cannot receive free tv nor want to pay for more liberal propaganda via cable. Enough.
TV networks are in the Self Inflicted Wound Hall of Fame.
Any show that attracts any sort of audience will immediately be deemed a hit. It will then be shifted around on the schedule until computer forensics experts couldn’t locate it. It will be pre-empted, repeated, interrupted by obnoxious on-screen ads and promos (for other shows nobody watches anyway) and generally abused by the very people who claim to be proud of it. Exasperated audience members will tune out and wait for the inevitable season-end DVD compilation which generates revenue but no ratings. Or...they will download it with all the nonsense edited out and realize that an hour long program is actually 36 min of content.
it’ll go up again in 2012.. but I’m not sure there will be a recovery after that. People just don’t need to watch TV anymore. the state of television reminds me of the movie “European vacation”.. when they get to the hotel in the UK and the TV has like ten stations of all the same thing. That is what it’s like watching the news. It’s like they have the same writers but different faces telling the story and I tend to gravitate toward the station with the better eye candy.
Yikes. We have the kids at home and ration their video game time in line with the amount of housework they do. I guess when a kids out of the house it's impossible to control.
Honestly, TV for about 50% of the time is garbage. Interactive entertainment is tremendously engrossing and feels rewarding at the same time.
I'm sure your son will have enough WOW soon enough.
I guess there’s hope, in that the numbers are declining. I’d love to see real change, like less than 25 million total audience, or any low enough number to hasten the death of the propaganda industry. Here’s to hope and change.
Total number of votes cast for the two American Idol Finalists........ 120,000,000 (telephoned in during a four hour period after the competition)
That's what I was going to say. All the kids I know ( a lot) talk about playing video games, not watching TV.
I saw some numbers that tie into this.
From IMDB comparing the NBC program Las Vegas (cancelled in 2008) to the newer season ratings:
All numbers shown are in millions of viewers.
Las Vegas
Season 1: 11.83
Season 2: 11.42
Season 3: 10.51
Season 4: 9.0
Season 5: 8.46 (On Friday’s where shows go to die)
2011 TV Show Ratings for NBC
Their HIGHEST rated shows in 2010-2011 (as of March 27th, 2011) is:
Law & Order: SVU: 8.46
Biggest Loser: 8.32
Law & Order: LA 8.24
The Office 7.33
Lets take a closer look at The Office..
-Constant advertisement.
-Prime Slot
-Great Day (Thursday)
-A+ lead ins
... and these are their ratings.
The Office
Season 1: 5.4
Season 2: 8.0
Season 3: 8.3
Season 4: 8.0
Season 5: 9.2
Season 6: 7.8
Summary:
Las Vegas Worst Season Rating was better than ANY NBC show in 2010-11.
NBC put Las Vegas on the worst possible timeslot on the worst possible day and it today would have higher ratings than ANY NBC show.
It’s not just gamers. A lot of people in that demographic are downloading or streaming content, versus watching networks.
Gee I wonder why TV viewership is down?
1) All men are portrayed as idiots in commercials. Its only politically correct to make fun of one sex and one race.
2) All shows have a strong female, minority, or gay character. White males are the dysfunctional, alcoholics, drug abusers (e.g. House) rapists, criminals (Criminal Minds - when was the last time you saw a black killer?), cad, or bad guy in general.
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