The Year That Rain Fell Up

TV viewing is off for the first time

All fall, broadcast and ad executives nervously peeked at the figures on their desks, then shut their eyes and turned the tallies face down, as if they hoped the whole thing would go away. Like scientists who had discovered that rain also falls up, they could not believe what they were seeing. Last week, however, the two rating services, Nielsen and Arbitron, confirmed their fears: in 1977, for the first time in history, television viewing declined.

For daytime audiences, the numbers were startling. From November 1976 to November 1977, Nielsen put the dropoff at 6.4%--roughly equivalent to the combined populations of Detroit and San Francisco. The Arbitron figures were even more dramatic. From 9 a.m. to noon, they said, viewing was down 11%--or goodbye Chicago. The arithmetic for the prime-time evening hours was less dramatic, but significant nonetheless. Nielsen said the nighttime decline was 3.1%; Arbitron said it was 5%.

On Madison Avenue, where the ad agencies are spending an estimated $7.65 billion of their clients' money on TV this year, the news was dismaying. "Nobody ever assumed that viewership would go down," observes Bill Tenebruso of Wells, Rich, Greene. "I think it's a little premature to start saying that something devastating happened to TV in 1977," says Walter Reichel of the Ted Bates agency. "But something is going on."

For daytime the something was fairly obvious. Families are smaller, one breadwinner's salary does not go as far as it used to, the status and expectations of women are altering; thus many onetime housewives who used to cry with the soaps are now working outside the home.

The nighttime decline is harder to explain, but there are probably several reasons. This year's emphasis on specials and miniseries--"stunting," as it is known on Network Row--has confused many viewers, leaving them uncertain when their favorite series will be on. "The old habit of most people was to think, 'If it's Saturday, it must be time for Mary Tyler Moore,' " says Tenebruso. "You can't assume anything any more. Shows are shuffled around like peas in a shell game." If a viewer misses the first episode of a miniseries, he may skip the other episodes as well.

Many people, mostly outside the industry, believe that audiences are nibbling less because they like the menu less. "The networks have always arrogantly said, 'There's nobody here but us capons, and we give the public what it wants,' " says Martin Mayer, author of About Television. "The decline in viewing may prove that the networks are not giving the public what it wants after all. This year the new shows have really not been very successful. They have been overcalculated in terms of audience and reaction. The networks are increasingly concerned with what the research department says people want."

As the networks have scrambled for young audiences--the free-spending youth market favored by advertisers--they may have inadvertently excluded nearly half the population, the 90 million people over 35. Not long ago, shows were designed to appeal to both young and old: for every Elvis Presley he introduced to turn on the kids, Ed Sullivan would follow with a troupe of Liechtensteiner yodelers to soothe their parents.

By contrast, almost all the current hit shows, like Laverne and Shirley and Three's Company, are written for those in their teens or early twenties. "The younger viewer has more say than the older one in what goes on television," explains Abbie Chapman, director of TV research for Columbia Pictures. "He has a greater vote." Partial proof that the more mature viewer may be alienated is the increasing popularity of public television, which still programs for adults with literate shows like I Claudius. "The public is smarter and wiser than the people who make programming decisions," says former FCC Chairman Newton Minow. "A lot of the network programs are not up to the level of the audience."

Another factor behind the decline may be new technology, which gave rise to TV in the first place. TV game-adapters are among the hottest items in the stores these days, and many people may be giggling over their own game shows, rather than watching one imported from Hollywood. Cassette machines are also becoming big sellers, and a few--but an ever larger few--may be looking at their old favorites on cassettes rather than tuning in to the new favorites of the networks. Neither home games nor video cassettes are measured by the ratings services, and people, paradoxically, may be turning off the networks more than ever even as they watch TV more than ever. The technological threat can only get worse. Home game shows are almost certain to become more sophisticated; cassette machines are even now becoming cheaper.

Whatever the explanation, advertisers ire pondering, and pondering again. In the past three years, TV rates have jumped an astonishing 50%; a 30-sec. commercial on a hit show like Happy Days now costs about $120,000. If the networks can no longer deliver the promised audiences, or even if the audiences remain about the same, TV may no longer be the obligatory medium it now is for many advertisers. Already, some are turning from TV back to magazines and newspapers. In the past two years, General Foods, for instance, has more than doubled the money it spends on print advertising. "We've got a very serious problem here," admits Frank Donino of the McCann-Erickson agency. "For the first time there is a disappointment factor about the television medium," says Martin Mayer. "And that, more than the numbers themselves, is what is really roiling the waters."

TV viewing may rise again, of course. The first two weeks of December, indeed, showed a small upward jiggle in the figures. But 1977 broke the historic pattern that every year saw more Americans watching TV more of the time. Many people, some even in TV, think that that interruption may be about the best news of the year. "I'd like to think society is getting healthier," says Norman Lear, the father of Mary Hartman, Maude and Archie Bunker. "People may be talking to each other again."

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