Posted on 07/08/2010 11:00:08 AM PDT by 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.
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(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
I find a few shows that I really like. They get cancelled or fizzle out creatively within a season or two.
I still have an open mind and I still look for something to watch.
You are right about the movies, the last couple of years have pretty sparce and this year I can’t remember a movie that I wanted to go see or enjoyed when I saw it.
I marvel that the studios have survived.
“...and here I thought it was because digital TV reception was so crappy.”
I have a nice old fashioned TV antenna in the attic. I live about 50 miles from the transmission towers. The digital picture looks awsome, the shows still suck.
Avatar - a movie that was so bad, I didn't even finish watching the DVD - pays for a lot of other crap from Fox. Then again, MGM - which is the studio that enjoys the rights to the Bod franchise - is so poor that can't even afford to finance that sequel, which is as close to a sure-fire box office money maker, as you can get. Maybe mediocrity is finally catching up to the studios.
My parents know what it is and yet they continue to tune in. My dad listens to Rush just about every day. And sometimes the reports can lead to supressed outrage.
The only time I felt any urge to tune in the during the past decade was times like when I wanted to see what falsehoods and denials Dan Rather would try to spew in the wake of the Memogate scandal. Tuned him right out after his 5 minute “defense” (fake but accurate, etc).
Glad to see that propagandist muckraking liar out of work and out of credibility. The Left made it personal in their vendettas against Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon (because they went after Communists).
Waiting for Mark Halperin (of ABC News and now Time) to be similarly cast out (he’s already been exposed as a DNC propagandist who would suppress Kerry’s lies and trump up Bush “falsehoods” as well as running with rumors of McCain’s affair while supressing reports of John Edwards’ bastard child).
The studios have consolidated (MGM owns the library of Orion which owns the library of AIP etc...).
With the new 100 year copyrights, they are banking their wealth off of half century old films that should already been in the public domain.
Disney's biggest money makes for a generation have been the home video sales of the product of WALT Disney, not the post-1985 culture trash.
And some Disney subsidiaries are in it to spin it (with anti-Catholic films like Priest released on Good Friday).
They would be more accountable to their box office bottom line if they didn't have 80 years of product in the vault to capitalize on. It's why any up and coming studio is going to face a tough battle (plus who is going to give that studio a distribution deal and screen time in a multiplex).
One Big Monopoly. But the robber barons of old were demonized while today's pwn the Legislature.
‘Yeah because we’re so worried what Hollywood haters think… WHO CARES?”lol
come from deadline.
http://www.deadline.com/2010/07/motion-picture-academy-elects-3-first-time-governors-returns-9-incumbents/
Yes, it's getting dangerously close!
I just read that only 2 out of 3 people think Washington suing AZ is outrageous.
Great Scot!
Shouldn't it be more like 99.999999999999999999999999999999999997%??
We finally tried Netflix's free trial for watching instantly through our Wii.
First series we watched....Burns and Allen.
What a riot Gracie was!
George: "Gracie, Where did you get the flowers?"
Gracie: "From Mrs. Stevens."
George: "Mrs. Stevens? I thought she was in the hospital."
Gracie: "She is. And when I told you I was going to visit her you said I should take her flowers. So when she wasn't looking I did."
That’s a heck of a lot better than the dumb stuff on Ozzie and Harriet. ;)
This show: NBC's "America's Got Talent" is emerging as the summer's most popular show has gotten away from the "drag queens" lip-synching, dancing and prancing and has actually gotten much better for it.
Piers summed it all up best when he questioned one contestant after he had given him the "X" "I'm not sure what talent it is you are exhibiting or exactly what your mental state must be when you as a 30-something year old male dress up and lip-synch as an 18 year old female."
As someone who lived through the “golden age of television” you have to remember the shows were a product of the times.
Television was “new” in the 1950s and many shows were live and they had longer seasons. Not everything was great, but it was new, and it was in the home, and it was “free”
Did all the old shows hold up over time, no, but many have, you only need to look for them.
I collect another example of the "it was new" phenomenon. That would be Mom and Dads records. They suck, but I collect them as an ephemeral example of the very concept.
,p. They were a Canadian band that, for some reason was fairly popular in the northern midwestern US. A sax, a "boom-chicka" drummer and a tin-pan piano played with gusto. And people actually bought this stuff. :)
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