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.
Read this AP article at Free Press. More on the “TiVo effect” from What’s New Media?
