More than 2.5 million fewer people were watching ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox than at
the same time last year, statistics show.
Everyone has a theory to explain the plummeting ratings: early
Daylight Savings Time, more reruns, bad shows, more shows being
recorded or downloaded or streamed.
Scariest of all for the networks, however, is the idea that many people are
now making their own television schedules. The industry isn’t fully equipped to
keep track of them, and as a result the networks are scrambling to hold on to
the nearly $8.8 billion they collected during last spring’s ad-buying season.
“This may be the spring where we see a radical shift in the way the culture
thinks of watching TV,” said Sarah Bunting, co-founder of the Web site
Television Without Pity.
The viewer plunge couldn’t have come at a worse time for the networks—next
week they will showcase their fall schedules to advertisers in the annual “up
front” presentations. |
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