Comments on: 2008-9 Broadcast Season Falls Further Behind 2007-8

By: Are Walled Gardens Set to Go Up Around TV? « NewTeeVee

Are Walled Gardens Set to Go Up Around TV? « NewTeeVee — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 22:18:25 +0000

[...] in an age of declining TV ratings, setting up artificial windows and fracturing potential audiences even further doesn’t seem [...]

By: Julia

Julia — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 17:35:55 +0000

I just had to find this to use for an essay I’m writing, and thought it would be interesting to share here. http://www.medialifemagazine.com/news2001/jan01/jan15/3_wed/news3wednesday.html This article says the nets lost nearly 10% of viewers after the strike of ’88. Looks like it’s happening again.

By: Brian W.

Brian W. — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 14:23:43 +0000

This shows that the writers strike really hurt the Networks. Seemed to me that Broadcast had pretty good momentum before that and people were viewing some of their shows as event TV.
Broadcast shot itself in the foot ….and it hurts.

By: Rob

Rob — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 05:19:53 +0000

well i guess i just have to hope that over the next few weeks these particular shows have a growth in audience to give the networks some reason to keep them. Chuck went up this week so hopefully that becomes a trend and i will be waiting for pushing daisies numbers tomorrow

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 05:05:47 +0000

Rob, the Renew or Cancel Index doesn’t lie. With their current numbers neither show is likely to be back next year.

By: Rob

Rob — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 05:00:49 +0000

so guys, do you guys think that with the overall drop so large for networks like ABC that shows won’t be viewed so harsh with their respective drops. Specifically shows like Pushing Daisies and Chuck whose drops seem to mirror the overall drops

By: Bill Gorman

Bill Gorman — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 04:02:15 +0000

Alec, I’d have thought that day would have already come, but broadcast television is still the only place for an advertiser to reach a mass audience, even if that audience is much, much smaller than it once was.

By: Alec

Alec — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 03:48:26 +0000

Isnt a TV show’s main purpuse is to generate revenue from advertisements, and with this trend of declining ratings, when (or at what ratings) do you guys predict that advertisers will start to hesitate to pay large sums of money for prime time slots

By: Bill Gorman

Bill Gorman — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 00:29:18 +0000

And NBC would argue that they still have yet to premiere (as of this chart), Worst Enemy, 30 Rock and Crusoe. Although, they’ll not have the impact of a CSI.

Of course, the only one of these charts that’s going to count everything is the one at the end of the traditional season in May. Still, seeing how things are shaping up every week is interesting.

Let me add that what really surprises me is that ABC isn’t doing relatively better. I figured that ABC was positioned to do much better than they have so far this fall.

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 00:10:32 +0000

It’s unfortunate that there’s no easy way (and we lack the data even if there was) to look at the bigger picture. CBS probably would look better if it had started CSI earlier — this chart compares this year with one CSI to last year with THREE CSI by now.

But CBS still may be in the worst shape overall. We know from other sources that ad supported cable viewing is up over this same period. ABC (ESPN, ABC Family, etc) and NBC (USA, SciFi, Bravo, Oxygen, etc) and to a lesser degree, Fox have big cable presences. CBS has Showtime, which isn’t ad supported, and that’s about it. And no, you can’t count the CW as a CBS cable channel