NYT: Young Men Are Back Watching TV. But Did They Ever Leave?
When Nielsen pulled the figurative fire alarm last year, telling TV companies they were losing young male viewers, network executives said the methodology was flawed, threatened to sue and generally denied that perhaps young men could be watching less television in favor of new media. Now, the numbers seem to be returning to the pattern seen before the fracas. Network executives say that the young men never went away.
Television critics say that TV programmers finally woke up to the fact that shows like "Coupling" hadn't been attracting young men and then fixed the problem with such fare as "Chappelle's Show" and "American Chopper."
Publications like MarketingVOX, which tend to enjoy grave-top dancing on the burial plots of the various traditional media, have been caught up short, as the return of the young male ratings indicates that Nielsen's early explanation - that the youngsters were off watching DVDs and playing video games or surfing the web - very well might not be true.
