SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
According to a report from AdAge, every single network drama that aired on Tuesday night experienced a double-digit decline in ratings. And aside from a decent showing from The Muppets, the report relays that there have been few bright spots to the start of this year's fall TV lineup.
[...] All told, cumulative viewership during "Premiere Week", as it's called, is down 8% compared to the same period a year-ago. More worrisome for TV networks is that viewership from the highly sought-after 18-24 demographic is down 20% year over year, with male viewership within that demographic falling by 24%.
Males in the 18-24 demographic are the most coveted in advertising because that's when studies show brand preferences are formed. 24% is a catastrophic decline for TV.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ledow on Sunday September 27 2015, @03:15PM
UK TV isn't much better.
For years now I've just cherry-picked the best and honestly waited unless everyone is still talking about a series years later before I even trial it. Seriously, I've only just picked up House and started watching that, and yet I've watched Hugh Laurie on English TV since I was a kid. It's just all so shit that until something had its entire run and you can go back and trial a handful of random episode (my minimum is 2, if I don't like it after 2, I'll probably never like it). Then I tend to buy the whole thing - or at the very least series by series until it deteriorates - on DVD / streaming services that don't have ads (I like Google Play and Amazon Prime Instant Video).
The random brainless stuff? I only watch when I need random brainless - I wouldn't *PAY* for it.
I'm waiting for the days that when you like a series, you can just buy it direct from the people who make it. No fuss, one click, purchase, done. No ads, no networks, no waiting for it to arrive in your area, no waiting for the big channels or distributors to pick it up.
Same with movies.
TV's dead. Scheduled TV is definitely dead. My TV is literally nothing more than a display device, I bought it to be so and not to be tied to types of content or methods of delivery. I'm just as likely to ChromeCast an episode from Amazon or Google as I am dig out something from the DVD shelf.
In its dying throes it might throw us a bone or two, but my cable connection is the prime source of entertainment not because of the set-top-box on the end (which comes for free with the connection) but for the Internet bandwidth it provides. And I do it all legitimately. If you're going to invent stupid rules, I'm not going to break the law to get around them, I'll just not consume your content - it's so much easier and cheaper and I already have been through the period where I couldn't afford to watch anything for years anyway, so I don't feel I've missed out if there's a series I've never heard of or similar.
The day my streaming is more difficult or annoying than necessary, I stop doing it.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday September 28 2015, @12:04PM
Scheduled TV is definitely dead.
My kids cry when we watch something live and
1) it has ads, which the streaming services do not, and "shared" media has ads stripped out.
2) I can't skip the ads like on the legacy DVR (mythtv for the last 13 years now)
scheduled TV is for pro sports, and pro sports is for boomers and older.