Broadcast (TV) viewership hits record low (Dinosaur Media DeathWatch™)

The Washington Times ^ | July 8, 2010 | David Bauder

[abb]

Americans avoided television in historic levels over the past week.

CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox together had the smallest number of prime-time viewers last week in two decades of record-keeping, the Nielsen Co. said. Given the dominance of the big broadcasters before then, you'd probably have to go back to the early days of television to find such a collective shrug.

The first week of July tends to be among the slowest weeks of the year in television, anyway, with families more engaged in barbecues and fireworks. The problem was magnified this year because July Fourth came on Sunday, largely knocking out one of a typical week's biggest viewing nights.

Together, the four networks averaged 18.9 million viewers last week, Nielsen said. During the season, "American Idol" alone usually gets a bigger audience than that.

NBC's "America's Got Talent" is emerging as the summer's most popular show, with its two original episodes last week the only programs to top 10 million in viewership, Nielsen said.

While the biggest broadcast networks are suffering, the Spanish-language Univision is stepping up. Among the closely-watched 18-to-49-year-old demographic, Univision finished second only to Fox in prime-time last week.

It's not World Cup soccer that is behind Univision's success, it's the prime-time telenovelas "Soy tu Duena" and "Hasta Dinero Separe." Those soaps accounted for eight of the 20 most-watched programs among 18- to 49-year-old viewers of all languages last week, Nielsen said.

snip

[abb]

Thursday afternoon good news.

[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, blogger and commentator

[equalitybeforethelaw]

I honestly have no idea what major broadcast TV has to offer. I stopped watching them years ago. They lie to me, they insult me, they attack my values and then they expect to watch their drivel? Shoosh.

[RobRoy]

My family dumped ALL TV back in 1997. We’re not even on their radar any more.

[ozzymandus]

What do they expect? I get about 80 channels and mostly watch Fox news and old movies.

[abb]

http://inlandpress.org/articles/2010/07/08/knowledge/management_human_resources/doc4c224187dc05e431192627.txt
Inland study reveals decline in newspaper salaries

http://mediamatters.org/strupp/201007080012
McClatchy D.C. Bureau Cuts Polling, Follows Trend

http://www.coloradopols.com/diary/12885/colorado-pols-responds-to-newspaper-legal-threats
Colorado Pols Responds to Newspaper Legal Threats

[Obadiah]

Americans avoided television...

A truer statement on this subject could not be written. Why in the world would most thinking people watch most of the cude left-wing sermonizing trash on TV?

[ConservativeMind]

We only watch shows online.

The television sits unused, now, for over four months. We’ve only turned it on for probably three hours over the past two and a half years.

Redbox, Hulu, and the networks’ own sites are much preferred.

[Obadiah]

Apart from perhaps occasionally watching Spongebob or some sports program, our TV basically services as a video monitor for the kid's PS3.

[Da Coyote]

Da soonah, da bettah.

Does anybody actually watch their trash anymore?

[mikey_hates_everything]

Caught “Duel” on a cable channel the other day. I can’t believe it was a prime-time ABC Movie of the Week after seeing what’s on ABC today.

[reagan_fanatic]

Perhaps if the networks spent more time developing quality programs that weren’t based upon how often some twenty-something got laid and stopped trying to shove their political viewpoints down our throats, we’d be more inclined to watch them.

[reagan_fanatic]

Duel is an awesome movie. Keeps you on the edge of your seat almost the entire time.

[henkster]

I generally don’t watch network TV either. My wife tries to from time to time, but she says every show she’s tried to watch has the gay couple or some other similarly offensive twist to it.

I’ll stick to sports, Fox News, and the history shows. And yes, the network nightly news is banned on all seven of my TV’s.

[Catsrus]

I no longer watch tv either. I prefer to pick up old reruns of my favorite past shows. You know, a time when there were actually good, wholesome programs to watch.

Those days are long gone.

[bicyclerepair]

I bet frantzie is happy with this news.

[bert]

For the record, I recently witnessed the announcement indicating the brilliance of Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes.

Niel Cavuto had Paul Gigot on and did a great interview. It was announced that Paul Gigot would become a Fox contributor and would have his own show on Niel’s business Network (I think it was the business rather than Fox News).

From Wikii.....Paul A. Gigot is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning conservative political commentator and the editor of the editorial pages for The Wall Street Journal
*********

This is synergism of the most powerful news entities working together to develop absolutely outstanding presentations.

As an aside but pertinent aside, I think Rubert approached Steve Forbes sometime back but was rebuffed. Rather than sell out, a very strategic alliance was proposed and developed where by there are Fox double page ads in Forbes and many of the Forbes folks at the very top make very large contributions to Fox programming.

Rupert is controlling the future with the synergy of his holdings in a manner at which his competitors can only marvel.

[Col Frank Slade]

I can count on 1 hand the TV I will watch.

Sports
Some A&E
AMC movies
FX (Rescue me)
TV LAND (Raymond)

That’s about it.

Click right past broadcast networks everytime.

[PATRIOT1876]

*I stopped watching them years ago. They lie to me, they insult me, they attack my values and then they expect to watch their drivel?*

I quit watching all TV about 9 years ago. I only had about 3 shows that I watched anyway. My wife didn’t watch TV at all and after a few months of watching my 3 programs I decided even that wasn’t worth wasting my time on.

We watch 2 or 3 movies a week, but that has come down due to the extreme anti-American anti-capitalist garbage that comes from Hollywood.

The fact that LA is boycotting AZ has curtailed some of our viewing.

I’d like to see some movies come out of TX, AZ, or OK or any other basically patriotic state.

I’m tired of the Left controlling the media for the last 40 years.

[Obadiah]

Perhaps if the networks spent more time developing quality programs that weren’t based upon how often some twenty-something got laid and stopped trying to shove their political viewpoints down our throats...

You have succinctly summarized 95% of all broadcast television programming outside of sports.