We Still Watch TV. So Why Are Stations Going Out Of Business?

(From The Globe And Mail.com -- By John Doyle)

Let's get something straight -- the television industry is not in crisis. The economy is in crisis.

Simultaneously, the news industry is in a state of flux.

While the U.S. networks and Canadian broadcasters let the whole world know that things are tough, people have not stopped watching TV shows.

They haven't.

Tens of millions of people do it every evening.

And every weekday people go online to buy DVDs of entire season's TV shows or go to their video store to rent or buy them. They'd never have heard of the shows if the material hadn't aired on TV in the first place.

There is no crisis of confidence in television as a medium for the delivery of entertainment and information.

Crisis, what crisis?

To use a familiar phrase -- It's the economy, stupid.

It's the advertising that's gone soft, not the viewing audience.

We Still Watch TV. So Why Are Stations Going Out Of Business?