Is TV On Its Deathbed?

How often do you watch TV? While it has been called lots of derogatory names, idiot box being one that comes to mind, I do think that there are a lot of TV shows that are well worth watching. Needless to say, my biases are involved when I highlight the likes of Game of Thrones and Doctor Who. Still, there is really no lack of good TV shows for anyone who wants to spend his downtime staring at the black box.

Then again, times have changed and we know that with modern lifestyles, TV watching habits have been radically altered as well. It has been said many times that TV is dying, but how true is this?

I suppose it is quite intuitive to say that TV is on its deathbed, what with on-demand streaming, downloading, and DVD/BD boxed sets making content readily available. The proof, of course, is in the numbers.

Jim Edwards of Business Insider recently made a strong statement to this effect – with the back up of stats, and as you may know, numbers don’t lie.

Start with these:

• Time Warner Cable lost 306,000 TV subscribers in the third quarter
• 1.3 million of Charter Communications’s 5.5 million customers don’t want TV; instead they just want broadband Internet.

Then there are the charts that show just how consistently cable TV ratings are sinking. Even primetime ratings are on the decline. Then there’s data showing that major TV events don’t get the attention they used to – including the World Series.

Even the NBA games don’t get as many eyeballs. (Then again, they mentioned Michael Jordan versus LeBron James – that’s not hard to understand!)

With the amount of data presented in the article, it is hard to dispute that TV as we know it is on the decline. That does not mean, however that the content is not being consumed like crazy. It’s just the means and methods that are changing. Think of The Walking Dead and how people get their hands on the show… Nothing more needs to be said, yes?

[Images via FineArtAmerica & Business Insider]