Everything is going downhill. Lost has never been "bad" and as of S4, is hitting its stride creatively, yet every week is a new series low. That tells me that Heroes' ratings woes can't just be chalked up to the creative fumbling in S2 and S3 until recently with Bryan Fuller's return.
The only shows that hang onto their ratings, overall, are the boring mainstream/old-fogey crap - reality TV shows, formulaic sitcoms and generic cop/doctor/lawyer shows, especially the stuff on CBS. Broadcast TV is now having to deal with their loyal audiences aging out of the 18-49 demo, which is all the advertisers care about.
The under 49s are increasingly elusive and have bailed on broadcast TV to cable, the internet, video games, DVDs with extras, spending all day twittering and facebooking, etc.
Networks hang onto their audiences by advertising new and existing shows to them. So when someone gets bored of an NBC show and leaves, that means the other NBC shows have that much harder time reaching any audience - it's a snowball effect.
So the good news for Heroes is that everything being relative, it's still the best of NBC's stinkerama lineup (ratings-wise). NBC can't cancel everything.
