Sports broadcasts uniquely resist the audience decay that hits all other programming

Evidence

Of course, certain segments of the population had never really left television at all. As faithful, regular, and predictable as the prime-time audiences of the 1950s were lovers of baseball, football, soccer, and other sports; in the United States and abroad, such broadcasts demonstrated an almost uncanny immunity to the laws governing other kinds of programming. Remember, Amos ’n’ Andy, with 40 million listeners in 1932, would lose its entire audience not long after. I Love Lucy, among the most successful sitcoms in history, petered out after six seasons. Yet no such fading away has been detected among sports viewers, who renew themselves in every generation. Perhaps it is because in sports there is no abuse of one’s attention, no jumping the shark. There may be long-term rises and declines in audiences, but overall, as ESPN’s John Skipper put it, they are “shockingly reliable.” — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1103

Categorization

• XREF: Directly extends the book’s core attention-cycle thesis from earlier chapters—every format dies by ‘jumping the shark’ except sports, which self-renews. — connects to: Live sporting moments differ from theater because they cannot be repeated — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 1053
• SHARE: John Skipper’s ‘shockingly reliable’ line about sports audiences is a great fact for anyone in media or advertising.

Broader Connections

• Live sporting moments differ from theater because they cannot be repeated #complicates (0.80) — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 1053