Is Network Televison on Last Leg & What Will Local Stations Do?

I don't pretend to have the answer to those questions. That is just something I pondered after reading:

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Less than six months after Jay Leno returned to hosting The Tonight Show, the show's ratings are the lowest they've been since 1992, Variety reports.

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So you think David Letterman is jumping for joy. Well, no. His viewership is in the toilet as well.

Late night network television is not bringing in the viewership it once did. Given all the Soap Operas that have bit the dust in the last year or two, neither is Daytime.

It took a long for it to happen with all the "new" media from cable/sat to internet to DVD's (Yeah, I know DVD's aren't doing that well either)to vidoe games (they also have taken a recent hit) but audiences are fully segmented. No one has the power and influence they once did.

So can Network Televison survive in this segmented age. Can they strip the wealth away from their "stars" that aren't "stars" anymore. Can they go back to the much lower budgets their reduced audiences demand? Can the hot shot executives that run these sinking ships understand their age of opulence is coming to an end. "Oh my God, they may have to learn to live like Warren Buffet." Will viewership go up or down if Jay Leno is replaced with reruns of I Love Lucy mixed with promotional 3 minute comic and music inserts and with some low paid fart with a paper bag over his head doing a brief introduction to the bits.

Yeah, local NBC stations. Call me up. I am just the fart who might can make that work when you decide to dump Jay Leno. :-)

Just kidding. "Oh my God, I don't want to have to live like Warren Buffet."