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Gaming Communities Cause Of TV Ratings Decline?
Bendebecker writes "We all know about the falling popularity of television this season, but Mike Malone of ABC News has a very interesting viewpoint on why this is happening. He seems to think that the growing popularity of online gaming communities (the example he gives is Counter-Strike) are causing the decline, which is particularly noticeable among the young male demographic."
So young males are playing video games, and that is the source of your falling ratings? Could there perhaps be a correlation between crap, and lower ratings, which in turn leads to higher video game consumption?
When a new form of entertainment emerges, it can take away from the time spent with current forms.
People only have so much free time in a day. If they begin spending 2-3 hours a day playing video games, that's 2-3 less hours they have for tv, music, reading, etc.
There was a time when you read books for entertainment, and that's about all you COULD do. Then radio came along, and families sat around in the evening listening to radio shows. Then TV, now video games. It makes perfect sense.
I do want to say that I think this is a good thing. For the most part TV is the most mindless, unstimulating, unsocial form of entertainment we have today. If more people play games (still maybe not the best entertainment, but challenging and oftentimes social none the less) than watch TV, well, I'm all for it!
It's just that the new shows are increasingly like the music comming out today. It's all the same: Reality this, real life that, American Wannabe, they're all modeled after a small group of once successful shows. I presently only watch maybe 3 to 4 hours of TV per week, and it's usually educational stuff (TLC, Discovery, Travel, etc). If the people in Hollywood were to do some real research and come up with something original again, maybe people would start watching again. But it will have to happen soon, or their only audience will be folks who dont have a net connection.
While programs like EQ, DAoC, Counter Strike, etc... are probably a part of the reason, another reason is because the current programming sucks. Most of the shows that they seem to be targeting that age range seem, to me, be a bunch of teen-aged soap operas (OC comes to mind).
I guess they figured that if it worked for Beverly Hill 90210, it should work now. With the Internet as it is today, people are expecting a more interactive form of entertainment. When I get home, I want instant gratification. I don't want to wait until the predetermined date and time to watch a show when I can load up DAoC and have fun.
Of course most people will choose gaming/computers/internet over TV. Computing/gaming has become the fabled "interactive TV," whereby the viewer is in complete control of the content he/she sees. With television, you sit there and watch monsters destroy the city, or cops catch bad guys. With games, you are in control of everything that happens, which provides a much more immersive experience than merely absorbing what others want you to see. Therefore it comes as no surprise TV ratings are declining in favor of gamedom.
Things like Video On Demand are getting closer to consumer control, but until there are TV ws where you can choose the paths the characters take, people will play games.
everyone's just sick of reality tv
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What is this "TV" thing?
Um, it's that thing you hook your gaming console to.
First violent behavior, and now this? When will the madness end?
The Human Cow - bringing you scrumtrelescence since 1995
I think it's quite possible that we have transitioned between a generation that finds it inconceivable to NOT watch TV, to another one that does not find TV important at all.
When I first stopped watching TV, right after the OJ Simpson car chase, whatever year that was, people treated me to everything from incredulity to ridicule about it. Almost no-one was able to simply accept the idea that I literally didn't watch TV, didn't own one, didn't feel like it was missing.
See, a whole lot of popular culture comes from last night's tube. People see it as a personal problem of theirs that you aren't hip to everything that's been popular recently. So it took a while for concepts like "survivor" to sink in as "a tv thing" sometimes. There are a TON of celebrities that seem to be household names, and I don't know who they are (nor do I care.)
These days, I do own a TV, but that's largely because the DVD, VHS, and sometimes CATV are necessary for university work. Otherwise, CATV is largely a side effect of my internet connection.
Let's see, in the past year, I think I've watched a few news programs (it's been a busier year than most, what with a war and all), Maybe one or two Simpsons episodes, and something called "Queer Eye." That's it. My cats watch more TV than I do.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
It never ocurred to them that HBO is kicking all the 'Free' TV stations in the behind because HBO has the cohones to produce shows that people want to see.
Then again the ABC's of this world are P-Whipped by the Advertizers and Local affiliates in the sense that the ABC's cave to their wishes. They will never be bold enough to ignore them and go in new directions.
Look at what happened to Futurama. Perfect example.
The only new shows worth watching this season are the Sopranos and Kid Notorious (Comedy Central). Both Cable shows who's formulas for sucess are ones that the 'Free' TV stations will NEVER touch.
Dolemite
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It's not just that the programs are crap, it's that they're crap filled with ads.
I buy my Andromeda on DVD. I don't pay for it by watching ads. If there are any SciFi producers out there: Screw the stations, produce for Region 0 DVD. Put up a BitTorrent link for your pilot and a "buy it now" link on your website.
Last I checked there weren't millions of people playing CS.
Can't wait for the TV studios to get wind of bittorrent.
I know what the real cause is of falling ratings. These things called books! They capture a potential TV victim for hours without even one advertisement! How fucking dare they. They are stealing money that is ours.
-- taking over the world, we are.
How the hell did they draw that conclusion? Seriously, even more interesting is how do they calculate viewers? Or better still, the popularity of a show?
I was reading a few months back that this season is the best in 10+ years, etc... Who the hell came to that conclusion, and based on what data? There is only one single new show I like (Las Vegas, on NBC), and even that is just better than average, not amazing, all the other stuff on primetime is crap! And all networks (FTA or Cable/Sat only) are simply taking an existing show and putting it back out with a new name, and new cast. Fox's OC is 90210 rehashed, Countless Reality shows, etc... even Discovery and TLC are dropping to new lows... How many Monster 'fill in the blank' shows can they produce... it's novel if it's a single show, not when it's 10.
I'm willing to bet that if I went to a major city, and asked 100 random people in a shopping mall to rate this season's TV, it wouldn't come close to the reported 'amazing new season, best in 10 years' crap that came from all the previews in August. Of course viewing is at a record low, that's obvious, the fact that execs are surprised and need to find something to blame is surprising... There is only so long that you can keep telling yourself it's not shit, but eventually you do taste it... These execs are dumber than I though possible.
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
It took me a long time, but I'm coming to grips that games are becoming too much like reality. Honestly, when I get home, I don't want to interact with anybody. I want to disconnect, and these MMOGs aren't helping me.
I sold my TV 3 years ago and haven't looked back since. I get my entertainment from books, the Internet, and games. Living without a TV was tough for about the first 6 months and then I stopped missing it. I don't smoke, but I wonder if it's something akin to giving up a cigarette habit..
When I am exposed to TV these days (at bars or at a friends house) I can't get over just how much garbage is on it. Not only are the shows bad, the news seems to be aimed at 9 year olds. The final insult is the advertising which seem more and more to appeal to the emotional side (buy this SUV and you'll feel like you're roaring through the mountains!) as opposed to practical advantage (sucks less, costs less, works better).
While TV, video games, and the Internet are all time sinks (and I believe there's data that backs this next claim up) - people tend to use their brains more while playing video games or using the net. And, to me, that can only be a good thing!
To see a world in a grain of sand, and then to step back and see the beach where the sand lies
No annoying commercials! At least in game you can put people on /ignore !! If I could stop the constant bombardment of advertisements, I'd probably go back to watching TV, but you can't seem to sit for more than six minutes before you're interrupted by the network news propagating FUD teasers, being told you're too fat or too poor, or that the new H2 will give your life meaning. The invasion of television commercials has made the signal-to-noise ratio of television unbearable (not that most programming isn't mindless in the first place, but you can't even watch the Discovery channel anymore without having your train of thought mowed down by that dumbass from Video Professor hawking "FREE CDs!!")
It's ridiculous. It's like someone set up a drum set in my living room and goes into a solo every six minutes, for six minutes.
Does anyone have any data on the proliferation of commercial air time compared to actual content on television? It seems to me that commercial breaks are even more numerous and longer. This is the one defining element of gaming that has not been so brutally co-opted, though I know we're seeing that change as well.
seriously ... between:
o more channels than ever before
o more video consoles than ever before
o more online/interactive games
o that intraweb thing
o more movies on dvd
o whole series being released on dvd
o recycled television line-ups
where are those viewers going? so many things to choose from, it will take something with a very strong appeal to draw viewers back in.
given the large amount of crap on tv these days, i don't think they'll ever enjoy the same numbers they've had in the past.
perhaps the heyday is over, and they should stop trying to find something to blame it on.
An average line up for a night's programming (UK tv):
show about a couple going house hunting
show about two people buying a house and doing it up
show about a pair of people building a house from scratch
Show about two people who bought a house last year on a tv show and have redecorated it since.
Hmmm, interesting. As a 24 year old bloke, just what I want to watch. I think I'll go play BF1942.
As far as I'm concerned marginalizing such serious computer gaming is just as daft as marginalinzing Wimbeldon, The PGA or the World Cup would be. They're all just "games," and all of them only draw their import from the fact that people give them import.
That's an interesting point. I think that online games have much more import than televised ones, because I can *participate* in the games online. It's entertaining to watch sports, I guess, but online, when the outcome of the game depends on me personally (and my teammates of course), it tends to get my adrenaline going a bit better.
Not many televised sports involve machine guns and rocket launchers, either. That would be pretty cool if they did, though:
Shoom... KA-BLAM!
Announcer: "Oh! And the quarterback is toast! Wait... it looks like a penalty's been called on this play..."
Ref: "Spawn camping, Number 51, Axis... fifteen yard penalty."
Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.
I think, however, that it might point to a new trend
I think one may draw an analogy with animated films or comic books. It used to be that people watched animated films as children and then they grew up and didn't watch them anymore. That is no longer true: look at the popularity of anime films for instance. Or even Disney films which seem half-aimed at an adult audience today. Same with comic books: where once was Donald Duck and Superman, today you may find American Splendor.
Naturally, if people play games for a longer period of their lives, then the larger the group of people playing and the more hours spent playing. This increased time spent on gaming means less time spent watching television (given the same amount of hours leisure time). If they also spend more hours per day playing games (as opposed to merely hours per life-time) then they have even less time to watch television (given 24h per day). The only way television could compete with that natural phenomenon would be to broadcast better and more attractive programmes, i.e., not just as good as before but actually better. Given the plethora of 'reality' shows (does anyone actually watch Survivor?) at the moment, I don't think that has happened just yet.
The liver is evil and must be punished.
Commercials
... that crank up the volume on breaks.
How many ads are in games? ZERO.
Sneaky Networks
Fox Network Admins
Last year Boston Public was milked for all it was worth. They skimped on it, put off the premier till like November. This year they learned and had the premier early on. Fox ruined Dark Angel, too, by cutting the budget and playing the surprise game.
The Surprise Game
Guess what? Your show isn't on tonite because we have this *insert stupid special or network excuse*. Stick to the fucking schedule or fuck off I'm playing Quake.
Stupidity
How many shows started off in the first year with a bang but lost all credability in the second year? Dark Angel. Boston Public. Ally McBeal. Shit, most of the shows being launched are totally stupid, except for a couple. Enterprise was stupid in the first year, but at least now it's getting really good, imho.
Repitition
Keep playing all the same shows on cable or sat and you get a lot of bored viewers who just tune out. Re-runs and double-ups are a sleeping networks answer to bad planning and dwindling budgets. Problem is, it's the cause and the some idiots at the networks think it's the answer -- at the same time!
The Video Game Market is Flooded
There are so many titles out right now for video games. It's the best it has ever been, and even while every game is like a varriant of about five archetypes, at least there is a variety that hasn't been there before, among copy-cats. The games that will stick out are going to break ground, no questions asked.
DooM 3
When DooM 3 comes out, who will want to watch TV at all? The DooM 3 experience is like watching TV or a film, but controlling the characters and propelling the storyline. Id Software is setting the bar for the new video games, and that can only mean one thing. We are aiming toward an eventual fusion between film and video game, that brings them closer than they have ever been. People are going to say FUCK commercials, give me more action and less bullshit. Stop wasting my time.
It's my money... I'll always spend it on the number one value. To me, that is GAMES.
The shows that really have mastered how to create an experience worthy of my time are CSI and CSI Miami. They know quality, and they will build loyalty of an audience as along as they keep giving us what we come to see... quality.
So now music, movies, and television are blaming file-trading, text-messaging, and gaming, respectively, for their drop in ratings.
Funny how none of the industry wonks are suggesting the obvious answer, that all three industries' ratings are going down because they are dishing out awful, unmitigated shit season after season.
All's true that is mistrusted
I find the "second run" stations [TNT, WGN, WB, and UPN] to do a much better job at making the good shows available. I'm never around for first-run stuff any more...I work second shift, so it's get a TiVo or you'd better show it again when I'm home! The other good thing about the "seconds" is that they usually commit to at least a whole season of something...and repeat it often enough to catch you up. Things like WB's Super Sunday nite "reruns" or the SciFi mini-series work out great. They also get off cheaper because they get to reuse content 3-4 times a month..and there's enough else on other stations if I'm actually around for a "rerun"
I also like Dish because I can get west coast channels [when the locals don't block] and get a second chance [cheapskate time shifting] to watch stuff when I have the time...Another thing to note for the networks: This is a crappy economy! People have chores, errands, and work to do...not watch TV. The little time they had for TV is now used for catching up email, IM, gamming, /. ..in addition to kids & house. You have to show the..shows when people have time to watch them, and stick with them long enough to build a following! [and KEEP the following when you get it..ala Dark Angel]