Network Audience Keeps Eroding

This fall, broadcast-TV shows such as NBC's "The Office" and Fox's "Fringe" are seeing their audiences jump by more than a third when counting people who record the shows and watch them later on digital-video recorders. But the rise in delayed viewing isn't enough to offset a broader trend: Fewer people are watching the big broadcast networks. During the first two weeks of the TV season, an average of nine million people watched prime-time programming on the top five English-language broadcast networks, according to Nielsen Media Research, including an average of 1.5 million who watched recorded shows within seven days on DVRs. The total was down 6.6% from a year earlier. "It's not pretty," says Jason Kanefsky, a media buyer at Havas's MPG. "No matter what the broadcast networks do, they need to find a hit."