Sign of the Times as Viewers Tune Out the Olympics

Screen Shot 2018-02-26 at 4.53.33 AM.png

The Olympics wrapped up on NBC and the ratings were not good. 

This follows the Super Bowl, which also saw lower ratings. And you can bet the Oscar ratings on Sunday will also be lower. 

It's a sign of the times. 

Appointment television is no longer a thing.

Fewer people are watching TV and it is something that TV executives are having a hard time dealing with. 

Anyone that has teenage or college-aged kids know this. The kids are not watching TV. They are watching YouTube or Netflix and most of that watching is taking place on their phone.

When the internet came along, people predicted it was going to kill newspapers. But the newspaper people laughed it off, kept their head in the sand and then was shocked as their business all but died. 

Some newspapers did embrace the Internet and they see a future in online. But the dead trees newspaper industry is hanging by a string. 

Now, with mobile and streaming video, the TV industry is in the same place the newspaper industry was 15-20 years ago. And the TV execs did not learn a thing from what happened with the newspaper people. 

They are sitting back with their head in the sand and not paying attention to their industry dying. 

It is the time that TV stations wake up and the low rated Olympics should have sounded an alarm that the current way of doing things is not the right way. 

Viewers are tuning TV out. 

Local TV stations can learn a lesson. Now is the time to blow up your station's website and make something that people want to go to. 

Look at every station's website in every market and they all look the same. Now think, is there any of those websites that make you want to go there? 

I have hundreds of bookmarks and not one of them is a TV station website. I spend my life writing and reporting on local TV news and I do not have a single TV station website bookmarked, or one that I go to on a regular basis. That should tell you everything you need to know right there. 

Which station will be the first to break the mold? Which station will be the first to blow up their website and build one that people will want to come to? 

The future is on not on the screen that's hanging on the wall. It's on the screen that is in your pocket, purse or sitting on your desk. 

Who's going to jump into the future and who is going to be left behind? 

That is the question you need to ask.