Networks need to start promoting how well certain episodes are faring on the internet, iTunes, and (in the case of cable shows) over multiple repeats per week.

I watch 30 percent of my TV at the gym...and I'm sure there are a lot like me. (Though judging by the look the girl next to me on the elliptical gave me, when she glanced at the ipod and saw Jason Stackhouse high on V banging the naked dark-haired girl, not everyone approves.)

i like "it's always sunny in philadelphia" quite a bit, but prefer to watch it in season-long marathons on dvd. i used to be a huge "battlestar galactica" fan, but their never-ending delays and gay half-season dvd releases pissed me off to the point that i lost interest.

television has simply lost its luster for me. there are enough great movies that i've never seen to occupy my free time for the rest of my life.

I'm not going anywhere for a good hour, and when I'm doing cardio, my attention is almost completely devoted to the show. I've become a fan of shows like MAD MEN, PUSHING DAISIES (may it rest in peace), BIG LOVE, SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES, etc. Some shows -- THE SIMPSONS, FAMILY GUY, AMERICAN DAD -- I only watch at the gym.

Networks need to start realizing that just because people aren't sitting at home watching TV shows as they air... they're still watching lots of stuff.

Tech Genius Diffuse Bomb By Cutting Several Wires Simultaneously, Giggles "I don' need a bomb suit"

Puh-thet-ick

Hate to say it...but 'House' is another great show that needs a preemptive kick in the ass...perhaps a few eps with more than ONE critical patient...or NO critical patient! HOUSE FORMULA: Sick person enters...false diagnosis...patient crashes. House is a dick. New diagnosis...patient SEEMS better...patient crashes again. House is a dick. FINALLY, House figures it out when someone says something completely unrelated to the case. Bingo! Patient cured. House wins again...and is still a dick. Hugh Laurie can only be gruff, but lovable for so long before this gets redundant...if it hasn't already for some.

ABC giving LOST an end date is the best thing to happen to network TV in years. These final 2 seasons will be so much better because of it. No more padding and filler...just rich, gooey creme filling from here on out! This is the only show that I 'appointment watch'.

Something is gonna have to be done about viewing first run shows via alternate media outlets...The networks DEPEND on us to watch these commercials...But technology is making it easier for us to avoid those ads. The Nielsen Ratings are a joke...the sample is miniscule (seriously...do you KNOW a 'Nielsen Family'? I didn't think so)...it doesn't accurately factor in all the DVR, TiVO and iTune viewers. The whole system needs to be thrown out and revised. The advertisers will NOT support these shows if there can be no way to accurately account for the viewers. Period.

I think we'll see a revamp in a few years where EVERYTHING we watch on a TV set will be subscription based. The only 'free TV' will be C-SPAN and PBS. Unless the networks figure out a way to sway us into watching the live over-the-air broadcasts, i.e. sitting thru the commercials in the time period the show actually airs...the advertiser based network TV revenue system is doomed.

Perhaps it's time for a new system anyways. Shows like 'Arrested Development' & 'Pushing Daisies' deserve better.

With my DVR I see all the commercials as I fast-forward past them. If something catches my eye I will go back and watch it. Even if I don't, I still see the commercials, at least more than if I were watching the show "live".

Does anyone know if Nielsen families are tracked on whether or not they stay on the channel they are watching when the ads come on? If they watch something else during commercials, is this reflected somewhere?

LOST fans are just saying, "So what?" because we know that, even if the ratings slide by a large margin (which I personally doubt), the series will run its course REGARDLESS because they've named an end date.

How, then, is that "suicide" (i.e. the premature "death" of the show)?

I'm not sure what they do for full time Nielsen families, though.

or did you need to keep track of every time you changed the channel?
9:00 pm - The Office
9:02 pm - Yankees vs Jays
9:05 pm - The Office
9:14 pm - Yankees vs Jays
9:15pm - The Simpsons (rerun)
9:18pm - The Office
etc...

yes, LOST has guaranteed two seasons even if no one watches other than J. J. Abrams' mother. however the purpose of a show is to sell advertising at the highest price a network can get, which means they want as many eyeballs glued to the set as possible. the weirder and more difficult the show is to follow, the fewer eyeballs there will be glued to the screen and companies cannot sell their Subarus, denture creams, and frozen pizzas. the bottom line means more than a guaranteed 34 or so episodes being aired.

I'm not sure everyone would bother, but those were the instructions given.

They just hardly matter anymore for LOST. The show is gonna finish up in 2010 whether, like you said, only J.J.'s mom is watching. So, really, the storyline doesn't have to appeal to the fair-weather fans who wouldn't stick with it anyway because, guaranteed, the show will complete its run.

Besides, LOST makes a mint on DVD sales. I've bought every season and, damn it, when they put it out a LOST: THE COMPLETE SERIES Blu-Ray box set in the shape of a hatch or a Dharma shark, I'll give all of my LOST DVDs to my sister (who refuses to watch until the entire series can be watched all at once) and buy the set.

And that's why ratings, for the most part, really don't matter in the case of LOST... loyal viewers know the end is near and will see it out.

Now if I were the producers of HEROES, having just finished a crap-tastic first-half of a third season that caused many longtime viewers (including me and my wife)to wash their hands of the show and delete it from our DVRs' series recordings, I'd be way more worried about how story influences ratings.