Where are all the TV viewers going?

As reported by the Los Angeles Times, nearly 450,000 of 25- to 54-year-old women (who have a lot of purchasing power) are turning their “eyeballs” away from the three major television broadcast morning programs this season, a 10% decline compared a year ago.  Where are they going?

As cited in the LA Times article, reasons for the decline include viewers’ use of DVRs (Digital recording devices such as TiVo), popularity of some 6,400 “Mommy Blogs,” a wide variety of Internet news sites, as well as changes in news anchors.

As the LA Times story states, some TV executives are seeing this decline as a short term fluctuation, while others admit that more of their coveted viewers are turning to the Internet to get their news fix, and to read and post to blogs, which, as the story states, are viewed as being more authentic and honest than the morning TV news programs.

More than that, blogs deliver fresh information directly from their peers, when they want it. 

The LA Times article quotes Pete Blackshaw, chief marketing officer for Nielsen BuzzMetrics, which tracks blog trends: “It’s safe to say that the Internet is beginning to cannibalize a lot of these conversational topics.”