A 1992 Bruce Springsteen song has finally become truly prophetic: If you can't find anything you want to watch in the vast TV ether, odds are you really do have 57 channels and nothing on.
The fact that Nielsen Media Research estimates that the average U.S. household receives 57 channels--three times the number available in 1985--demonstrates the dramatic impact technology has had on viewing habits in just the last few decades, even as the TV industry braces for its collision with computers, the Internet and digital formats.
Recently issued data compiled by Nielsen and another media tracking firm, Statistical Research Inc., underscores how rapidly this explosion in the number of viewing options has occurred--ensuring that the thumbs and forefingers of couch potatoes, if nothing else, will get plenty of exercise.
New wrinkles on the old TV watching habit have appeared with astonishing speed. Consider videocassette recorders--a device essentially nonexistent in 1980 now found in anywhere from 85% to 90% of U.S. households. Meanwhile, any effort associated with changing channels largely disappeared thanks to the remote control, available now to 94% of viewers, up from fewer than three in 10 during the mid-1980s. In addition, roughly three-quarters of households are wired for cable or own a satellite dish, compared with 20% in the mid-1980s.
These trends have conspired to undermine the popular image of nuclear families gathering around a lone electronic hearth. Not only are there more channels to watch, but nearly three-quarters of homes contain two or more TV sets, freeing Mom, Dad and the kids to scatter to different rooms. Indeed, more than a third of children under 18 now have TV sets in their rooms.
All this represents a significant departure from the way people watched TV a quarter-century ago--back when only 43% of homes had more than one TV set, and families still assembled to watch Top 10 shows like "All in the Family," "Sanford and Son" and "The Waltons."
For ABC, CBS and NBC, which once depended on people sticking with them almost out of sheer inertia, these figures at least provide some explanation for their ratings decline.
Granted, the networks have committed plenty of their own programming and scheduling blunders, but these sweeping changes have happened faster than you can say "The Chevy Chase Show." Network executives thus find themselves in uncharted territory, with the combined share of the prime-time audience for ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox down to 53%. In the early 1970s, before channels like Fox and the WB (as well as many of their executives) were born, the Big Three commanded more than 90% of viewing alone.
