To TV or Not to TV

Did Nielsen really report that the number of total television households in the U.S. is? It couldn't be. I thought I was one of the few people in the whole country who still watched TV.
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I had to go back to re-read the latest Nielsen figures. Did it really report that the number of total television households in the United States is up?

It couldn't be. I thought I was one of the few people in the whole country who still watched TV.

Hadn't Nielsen heard? Everyone's online. People are watching on their PDAs. They're doing the Hulu and scanning all the CSIs. I even saw stories on TV that TV is dead. My cellphone flashed me the news alert, too.

No, the AP story said Nielsen "estimates the number of television households in the United States is up to 114.9 million as the new TV season begins."

That was followed by the estimate that the number has increased by 400,000 homes since last year. "That's the smallest increase in the past decade."

All right. There's that other shoe. It's the smallest increase.

As a devoted consumer of new and old media and a purveyor of platforms, I'm encouraged even by the smallest increase in viewers. I know I pay more attention to numbers of TV viewers than most because my late husband produced many of the most-popular shows for those viewers for decades. But, I was worried for the future Aaron Spellings of America that no one would be watching unless producers could translate Dynasty and Charlie's Angels to a 3.5 inch (diagonal, natch) screen with a few hundred pixels.

The latest Nielsen report concluded that the nation's total viewers over age two has increased to 292 million. Make that 292,000,001. I'm not ready to surrender my membership in the TV households of America club just yet.

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