Reality & Sports Rise; Drama & Comedy Fall

[Jetfire]

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/20...genre-watch-reality-drama-comedy-fall/104445/

Nielsen Broadcast Primetime Genre Watch: Reality & Sports Rise; Drama & Comedy Fall

...Reality and sports programming have gained a lot of ground since the 2001-02 season, and unsurprisingly it has come at the expense of dramas, and comedies (which were hardest hit)...

Over all TV viewing is at 187 million for the 2010-2011 Season...it was at 185 Million in 2001-2002...it was at it's peak 202 Million during 2003-2004/2006-2007 TV seasons.

Given growth of DVR, On-Demand, online streaming etc. over the decade, Nielsen concludes that overall broadcast viewing is still impressive.

Overall TV viewing doesn't seem to be hurting too much...but why are sports & reality beating out dramas & comedies? Does this concern you?

I don't watch as much sports as I use to and could care less about reality.

[edit] I should add that it concerns me because I don't want to see more reality shows and sports taking up where dramas and comedies would be...in Primetime.

 

[Owain Taggart]

And next season, there's sure to be a reality show concerning sports, like what happens in the locker rooms... One sure fire way to make sure I don't watch any TV at all lol.

 

[the G-man]

It's the changing nature of network television. Sports shows and reality shows are cheaper to produce. They are more friendly to watching "live" and so there's less worry about downloads, DVRs, etc.

Dramas and comedies are still out there but they're migrating more and more to cable and/or download/DVD.

 

[Spot's Meow]

I'm not too concerned about it. There are plenty of quality shows out there that I enjoy, in drama, comedy, reality, documentary, and other genres. The only thing I don't really watch is sports, but I'm not surprised that it's more popular now. I just wish it wouldn't cut into my other shows during the week when the clock runs over!

 

[Starbreaker]

Sports and American Idol really aren't things you DVR...

 

[RoJoHen]

It's probably a few things. Most people I know watch sports live because sports are TV "events." You can TiVo a football game, but you won't be able to talk about it the next day at work. A lot of people watch sports in groups with their family and friends. The center their Sunday around the football games.

Dramas and comedies don't have the same immediate impact. There's no huge incentive to watch them the night they air. You can TiVo a show and watch it whenever you want, or you can wait for it to come out on DVD or Netflix and watch several episodes at a time without commercial breaks.

At the same time, you can miss a football game, and it won't really affect your ability to watch the next football game. If you missed an episode of "Lost," you were pretty much fucked until you had a chance to get caught up. It was a lot easier for me to just wait for the seasons to come out on DVD and watch them that way.

I don't think dramas and comedies are necessarily being watched less; they're just not being watched the way they used to.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Sports and American Idol really aren't things you DVR...

Exactly. Their ads are still worth about as much as ever. Timeshifting is reducing the value of drama and sitcom ads, and since the broadcast audience already has skimpy value, based only on ad viewing, it's in an economic squeeze.

Broadcast has yet to figure out whether they can salvage scripted TV or if the way their business model and technology is going is inevitably going to destroy every last vestige of it. Playboy Club was NBC's attempt to mimic cable, and it went down in flames. Next up are ABC and NBC's experiments: Pan Am and Terra Nova. Won't be long now...

Anyway, cable will continue to have the best comedy and drama so I'm far from unhappy. The additional subscription revenue from cable makes the difference. The audience is worth more there, so the audience numbers don't have to be as large in proportion to the budget.

 

[Jetfire]

If you remember Temis I posted info from an EW article about the average age of viewers per net and what those demos were watching in the Playboy Club thread back in Aug...




http://insidetv.ew.com/2011/03/15/ratings-by-age/

The five most popular shows among adults ages 50 and over: Dancing With the Stars (ABC, 13.8 million), followed by NCIS (CBS, 13.6 million), Dancing With the Stars results show (ABC, 12.2 million), NCIS: Los Angeles (CBS, 11.6 million), and The Mentalist (CBS, 10.3 million).

Men 18-34: Family Guy (Fox, 2 million), American Idol Wednesday (Fox, 1.8 million), The Simpsons (Fox, 1.7 million), The Office (NBC, 1.6 million), and American Idol Thursday (Fox, 1.5 million).

Men 18-49: American Idol Wednesday (4.7 million), American Idol Thursday (4.1 million), Family Guy (3.2 million), The Simpsons (Fox, 2.9 million), and Two and a Half Men (CBS, 2.8 million).

Persons 12-34: American Idol Wednesday (6.7 million), American Idol Thursday (5.7 million), Family Guy (4.3 million), Glee (Fox, 3.9 million), and The Simpsons (3.6 million).
Kids 2-11: SpongeBob SquarePants (Nickelodeon, 3.1 million), iCarly (Nick, 2.7 million), Monster High (Nick, 2.4 million), American Idol Wednesday (2.2 million), and Victorious (Nick, 2 million).

Total viewers: American Idol Wednesday (25.8 million), American Idol Thursday (24.2 million), Dancing With the Stars (21.3 million), NCIS (20.3 million), and Dancing with the Stars results (18.7 million).

Speaking of ages, younger-skewing networks like the CW don’t corner the market on the Clearasil set. That honor goes to MTV. Here are the average viewer ages for some of the most popular networks on your satellite dish or cable box. (Numbers are based on programming that airs Mondays-Saturdays from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m., and Sundays from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m.):
MTV: 23.2
FX: 38.1
TBS: 37.5
CW: 41
ESPN: 45.7
Fox: 46.1
TNT: 47.6
NBC: 49.4
USA: 49.6
ABC: 51
CBS: 54.9
TVLand: 54.9

[edit] Of course alot of "reality" shows are winners...I think nets really need to pay attention to who exactly is watching...the CW wants that female 18-34 demo but the average age of it's viewers is 41...you would think it's programming would be closer to what MTV has since they own the younger viewers.