Shoot Your TV

There was an interesting item on CNN.com today about television viewership declining significantly this spring, even during the critical May sweeps period. The article reports:

On TV's worst spring in recent memory, a startling number of Americans drifted away from television the past two months: More than 2.5 million fewer people were watching ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox than at the same time last year, statistics show.

Some of this decline can be attributed to the rise in TIVO use. The Nielsen survey only counts viewership of a TIVO'd television program if the recorded program was viewed within 24 hours of being televised. Programs are also being downloaded and streamed and Nielsen is certainly not tracking that. Another theory suggests that the adaptation of early Daylight Savings Time has thrown people off and instead of laying on the couch watching television, they're outside enjoying the extra hour of light. Holy shit! People are outside enjoying fresh air! What is this world coming to?!

In my humble opinion, I think the culprit for this decline lies squarely on the breadth of outright crap polluting the airwaves. To say nothing of the erratic programming. If there's a decent program that catches your fancy, you'll see four new episodes and then the show goes on hiatus. Case in point: I started watching "Heroes" when it premiered because I like the premise. Then NBC decided to pull it for awhile (now that viewers had bought into the show and were routinely tuning in at its appointed time)launching in its stead one of their inane sitcoms. The programmer's assumption? Viewers are loyal to the time frame, they'll give this a try. "Heroes" finally returned with new episodes for the May sweeps, but by then I'd lost interest and stopped watching. No amount of "The Most Dramatic Episode Ever" hype will lure me back in. I'll bet a lot of people feel that way; don't toy with our emotions. If you can't give me one of the few television programs I enjoy on a consistent basis, I'd rather be outside enjoying the fresh air.

My current television viewing patterns are not consistent with the American public. I don't watch "Grey's Anatomy" or "Desperate Housewives" or "Lost" or "Dancing With the Stars" or even "American Idol" these days. I've never watched "Survivor" or the "CSI" series. I don't like game shows and a chimp could write most sitcom dialogue. "ER" should have been put down years ago. Truth be told, with the exception of the odd reality series on Bravo, nothing on television interests me at all right now.

Perhaps my view is in the minority, but the downward viewer trend does say something. Next week, the big networks will showcase their fall schedules to advertisers in the annual "up front" presentations. With $8.8 billion in advertising revenue at stake, the network dog and pony show better be impressive. I mean, you can only flog so much more life out of the current leading franchises before the audience disappears altogether.

By the way, I hear the air is nice and fresh outside.