Whenever something goes awry in pop culture, a reporter must call to arms a panel of experts to explain why. This is what keeps people like Robert Thompson and his ilk employed. So there's David Carr today, rounding up reasons for why primetime shows are not attracting the huge audiences that they did before the writers strike.
Here are a few:
• The strike let Americans find entertainment options other than TV, and now they're wrapped up in those activities. (Don't worry: None of them involve exercise.)
• The gap in new episodes for serialized dramas during the writers strike allowed viewers to forget what was happening, and they tuned out, figuratively and literally.
• Re-runs of these serialized programs weren't aired in the regular time slots during the strike, since they fail to bring in decent ratings, so viewers got out of the habit of tuning it at certain times.
• People might not know the strike is even over! (Idiots.)
• Comedies aren't attracting audiences because they have no story lines, so it's easier for viewers to "dip" in and out at their convenience without fear of missing anything.
• Viewers used the strike as an excuse to jump off the bus of certain shows they weren't fully invested in.
• TiVo!
• Or, our guess: It's Nielsen's fault.
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Very good analysis of reasons. Another one could be that people are realizing that reality shows, reality competition shows, movies, action shows, police shows, etc,…. have brought the level of violence into the homes and consciousness of families to such and extent that, coupled with real news that is also very violent and those shows that call themselves news related, such as Bill O'Reilly etc… AND the fact that we are all sick of the election coverage already, people are turning the TV's off.
I stopped watching Network Televesion in October of 2006, and Discontinued my Subscription to Cable TV the following January. There were TWO reasons why I did this:
1. During the last ten years more and more Quality Dramas and Comedys were taken off the Schedule and replaced with Low-Quality "Reality", Game and News Shows.
2. The amount of Commercials aired each hour has almost DOUBLED! Many of them are for products I have absoluty NO interest in buying, and/or are presented to me in a way I find Insulting and/or Offensive! (Certain Ads for Medical Products approach being PORNOGRAPHIC in nature, and are shown at times, such as Afternoon Sporting Events, when CHILDREN are Certainly Watching!) I use the money I used to spend on Cable Subscriptions (About $75.00 a Month) to purchase DVD Box Sets of my Favorate Shows. in 18 Months I have ammassed a Library of almost 5,000 Hours of Programming! Pure Entertainment, and I don't have to sit there with my finger on the "Mute" Switch ready to blot out an offending Ad!