If a Tree Falls in the Forest...

...does anybody hear it?

Checking the news of late, you'd think the only labor action that has happened in the country is the current screenwriter's strike in Hollow-wood. They want a bigger slice of the pie, all well and good, but a lot of this amuses me. There is a fair bit of chest-beating over various shows. Will Heroes take a fall? Will we see Battlestar Galactica's final season? How about 24? Will The People, having been subjected to endless amounts of Reality Television desert their sets for other forms of entertainment?

I don't know about you, folks, but for me the train left that station a long time ago. Three years ago I averaged—maybe—four hours of television a week. Two years ago, it dropped. For the past year...about one hour of television. Period.

I'd rather read. I do watch shows, but more often than not, on a massively time-shifted sense of things (waiting for the DVD set for a season to come out and then watching when it suits me). I've spent more time online than in front of the television set (as you may have noticed from all the postings here!). Shows that I'm most interested in get shuffled, cancelled or just never come to pass.

And, did I mention that I'd rather read?

As television has become more and more fractured, either chasing smaller and smaller sub-sets of the audience or chasing diminishing returns on what was the latest hot trend...it has captured less and less of my interest. Seeing the ratings for shows before this strike, I can't be the only one. Are more people playing Halo than watching Heroes?