It seems there's something of an inquest going on in America's TV land. As ABCnews reports, there's been an "unprecidented" fall-off in viewers, despite it now being three weeks into the big networks' new seasons. The biggest drop in viewing has been among young men aged 18-24, which is a pretty important demographic for advertisers. Twenty percent fewer are watching this year compared with last, and there was a 12% drop last year too.
"A displacement of this magnitude very possibly signals a massive shift taking place just below the surface of our society. It may even mark the beginning of the end of the dominance of television in American life," says ABCnews.
"What's causing this cultural earthquake? It's called, appropriately, Counter-Strike. It's a computer game, and even as you read this, thousands of young men (and a few hundred young women) are playing it on the Internet — instead of watching TV."
Now, the author isn't really suggesting that those hundreds of thousands of young men are all off playing Counter-Strike. But he is suggesting that there's a cultural shift afoot: the immersive, participative entertainment offered by online gaming is ready to cause real problems for established, passive forms of fun. Having witnessed how far online gaming's gone in South Korea recently, it's a thesis that's quite believable.
