A writer’s strike, shitty programming and the Internet. Oh my!

Viewer’s are leaving appointment television by the droves and broadcasters are scrambling to do something, anything to keep them firmly planted on the couch during prime time. I’ve covered the topic of declining viewers in the past, but the trend in hemorrhaging viewership of major network programming and in turn local broadcast stations is accelerating, even as the number of overall television viewers are up and as many cable shows enjoyed their best ratings during the month of April. The “Big Four” networks lost 9% of their viewers over the 2008 April/May period from 2007 and last year they were already down 5% from 2006.

During the writer’s strike from November 5, 2007 to February 12, 2008 broadcast networks complained in advance that their ratings would suffer, but that it was a temporary setback in their business. Well, enough time has passed for the numbers to come out and set a table for them to eat their words. A good summary of the broadcast losers and cable winners over the past few months can be found here. Continue reading ‘Local Broadcasters Can’t Catch A Break. Mostly Their Fault.’