But this is pretty observably true - TV viewership spread is wider than ever before. Remember that we started with a ~dozen TV networks showing one show at a t

But this is pretty observably true - TV viewership spread is wider than ever before. Remember that we started with a ~dozen TV networks showing one show at a time. The concentrating effect was so immense that the viewership numbers from the 70s and 80s have never been surpassed. Take a list of the highest-viewed programs of all-time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_watched_television_broadcasts_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_watched_televisio... The only modern programs that even rank is literally the Super Bowl. The last shows to break 100mm viewers was in 1977 and 1983. For primetime programming things peaked in the 80s with the Cosby Show, with ~30m households tuning in every single night for a single TV show. Viewership of linear broadcast programs has been on a slow downwards slide since. And that's not because people are watching less programming overall - but because they're now watching a vast array of other programs, including non-traditional programming like YouTube. The tail has never been longer. Not only can you find a much wider variety of content than ever before, but the long tail is immensely popular! People are making a living doing shows with a few tens of thousands of fans, and major high-profile, high-budget productions get nowhere close to the viewership from TV's heyday (Succession's finale had ~3m viewers!) because the distribution of viewership is so much wider than before!