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We're starting to watch less TV |
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Written by Rick Kushman, MCT
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Thursday, 18 October 2007 |
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Not sure what to make of this, but, in total, it's kind of scary.
The Nielsen Company said this week that the time an average American household watched TV in the 2006-07 season remained exactly the same as in the season before. And it's an astounding eight hours and 14 minutes a day.
But — and this is a big one — the average American person watched one less minute of TV than the season before, down to four hours and 34 minutes.
I know. 4:34. What are people wasting the other 19-plus hours on? Slackers, I'm telling you.
Seriously, it may be just one minute, but that's the first downward movement in TV viewing since the Stone Age. Nielsen speculates that extra minute of attention might be going to one of the other screens in the house, like of computers or video players, which tells you that nothing gets past the folks at Nielsen.
The ratings company didn't speculate why total household viewing time is up and individual time is down, but it probably has a lot to do with Nielsen finally including the viewing in such community places as college dorms. And shouldn't those people be going to class?
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Speaking of class, the good news of the week is that CBS announced it's resurrecting one of the all-time classic game shows, "Password" — now to be called "Million Dollar Password" — and that it will be hosted by another classic, Regis Philbin.
Philbin seems the perfect guy for the straight-up, but always interesting, game that actually is more substance than flash, something you don't see much on TV anymore.
Producers say there will be some new twists, but the fundamentals will stay the same: There will be two competing pairs, each with a celebrity and a regular person, and the clue, of course, cannot be any form of the password.
The original "Password" started in 1961 and was hosted by Allen Ludden. It morphed into "Password Plus," then "Super Password" before it left the air in 1989.
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As a warm-up act for "American Idol," Fox starts "The Next Great American Band" with a two-hour premiere Friday night (at 8 p.m. EDT), and it's actually pretty fun.
This comes from the producers of "Idol" and, clearly, they're hoping to catch the same kind of ratings magic as with their big show, though no band-making TV series has had anything close to the resonance of "American Idol."
The judges also are based on the "American Idol" model, just like all judges on all performance contest shows. There's John Rzeznik, the lead singer from the Goo Goo Dolls, playing the legit music guy; Sheila E. playing the nice woman, and Ian "Dicko" Dickson playing the cranky guy with some kind of British Empire accent.
On the plus side, the groups are very different — they range from country to classic rock to hip hop — and they all appear from the clip reel sent to TV critics to be seriously talented. Well, not all of them. The band led by Fifi Larue, the Gothic Killer Clown, not surprisingly has some work to do.
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Finally, in case you missed this announcement, George Lucas said this week he's beginning to work on a "Star Wars"-related TV series. He didn't have many details, but Lucas, the creator of possibly the most valuable entertainment property in history — it grossed $4.3 billion worldwide from just theater receipts – said he's about ready to start hiring writers and producers.
The live-action series would be set in the "Star Wars" universe and include minor characters, but will have no Skywalkers in it. Probably won't have Jar Jar Binks, either.
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Rick Kushman:
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