This graphic shows no drop between 1955 and 1960. What you see in the second half of the 1950s is ABC gaining market share from NBC and CBS. In 1955 NBC and CBS each have about 25M viewers and ABC has about 13M, for a total of 63M. In 1960, they're all bouncing around the 20M mark, for an eyeballed total of 58M. That size of drop--a few million maybe?--could be explained by something as simple as the 1958-1959 recession or the cancellation of a few popular shows.
All of the networks show drops in the 1953-1955 range, but if I've learned nothing else in my time I've learned not to trust the two or three data points at the start of a time series, especially if they date from when the data-gathering method was itself new.
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Date: 2010-01-18 03:44 pm (UTC)All of the networks show drops in the 1953-1955 range, but if I've learned nothing else in my time I've learned not to trust the two or three data points at the start of a time series, especially if they date from when the data-gathering method was itself new.