Audience figures plummet

TV EXECS promising a wave of cheap reality shows have been stunned to discover they are losing their audiences to the Internet. Ratings from Nielsen Media Research show that TV is losing its male viewers among men from 18 to 34 fell 12 per cent compared with the year before. For the youngest group of adult men, those 18 to 24, the decline was a steeper 20 per cent.

A spokesman for Nielsen Media Research pointed out that the shift is small, the average US male is apparently watching four and a half minutes less a night, and is equal to them taking an extra loo break.

But it seems that with Internet, broadband porn and computer games, sit-coms and reality shows aren’t really cutting it for your average US bloke.

A CBS spokesman told US hacks that he was not concerned about the sudden drop and said that the fact that it happened suddenly was probably a clue that it was a glitch.

But the drop in ratings confirms a study done four years ago by UCLA that showed that Internet users watched less television.

At that time TV execs claimed that Internet men were different and did not watch much television, unless you count Star Trek, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.

UCLA has continued its study and found that the Internet use has so thoroughly permeated American society that social differences between users and nonusers has narrowed significantly.