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Fascinating counterpoint to the way television has gone... thirty years ago, networks sneered at Neilsen ratings that they beg for today. When there were only half a dozen channels (or three, for a lot of people), every show got watched by a huge crowd; with hundreds of channels available now, only a tiny fraction sees even the most popular shows.
Even with the population being so much higher, viewing tastes are a lot more scattered. And the other entertainment industries are going to face the same problem: with the internet making promotion & distribution essentially free, publishers (and music companies, and news conglomerates) are going to have to learn what people *actually* want, not just what they want more than nothing. And they're going to discover that people's tastes are different, and that they can't capture that many people's attention at once if they have real competition.
Today's midlist numbers are tomorrow's bestsellers'; inertia will only carry the industry so far.
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