In the age of TiVo and Web video, what is prime time?

This week, the television upfronts--in which the broadcast networks present their schedules to advertisers--will open with a mystery. Who stole six million viewers?

That's the number who were watching prime time television last May, a month affectionately known as "sweeps," but have disappeared this year, according to the overnight Nielsen ratings. Each of the major broadcast networks, save for Fox, has seen its audience decline this season. The ratings for hit shows like American Idol and CSI have approached record lows.

Where some of last May's 44 million viewers went is not a mystery, according to the networks. The writers' strike this winter deflated the ratings and accelerated the flight of viewers to cable channels.

But the more significant shift can't be blamed on the strike. In the past television season, there has been a sharp increase in time-shifting. Some of the six million are still watching, but on their own terms, thanks to TiVos and other digital video recorders, streaming video on the Internet, and cable video-on-demand offerings. So while overall usage of television is steady, the linear broadcasts favored by advertisers are in decline.

The mystery, then, is what the networks should do now.

Brad Adgate, research director of advertising agency Horizon Media, said that advertisers were paying attention to the changes.

"Part of the reason why advertisers buy television is because of its immediacy," Adgate said. As more consumers time-shift their viewing, "there becomes less of a difference between ads in magazines and ads on television."

Broadcast television remains the dominant medium for advertising, as the $9 billion upfront market attests, but its prime-time audience is gradually shrinking. Time-shifting has cushioned the declines, but in ways that are trickier to measure and pitch to marketers. With on-demand options available in more households than ever, networks have no choice but to adapt.

For starters, the prime-time schedules crafted by television programmers might become less important with each passing year. David Wolf, a senior executive with consulting firm Accenture's media and entertainment practice, said that "must-see TV"--the longtime slogan for of NBC's Thursday night lineup--might become a television relic.

"The days of the 'lineup' are numbered," Wolf said. In other words, with fewer viewers watching linear over-the-air television, networks can't assume that a heavyweight lead-in like Dancing With the Stars will keep viewers watching all the way to the late local news, a pattern that has helped networks introduce new shows.

It may also mean that matching up programs becomes less important, or at least less potentially damaging. Last fall's powerhouse Thursday at 9 p.m. match-up--ABC's Grey's Anatomy versus CBS's CSI versus NBC's The Office--was a scheduling move influenced by time-shifting. All three shows are popular among the young, upscale viewers who record and stream shows most often.

"I think that scheduling decision would have been a lot harder to make in a non-DVR world," said a senior network executive who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to be candid about the issue. "It would have been more of a zero-sum game then."

Many of the top-rated broadcast shows now have 20 percent to 25 percent ratings gains when DVR viewing is calculated. In urban areas, the gains are even greater. In Los Angeles, fully half the 18- to 49-year-old viewership for some shows, including The Office and another NBC sitcom, 30 Rock, happens on a time-shifted basis.

Some viewers shift their viewing only slightly, overlapping shows scheduled later in the evening.

Of 20 shows time-shifted most often, only one (Medium) is on at 10 p.m. As appointment viewing wanes, hit franchises--ones that viewers will record or watch online each week--become even more important.

"As a result of time-shifting, the biggest shows are getting bigger and some of the smaller shows are getting negatively impacted," the senior television executive said.

At a series of upfront presentations this week, the networks are likely to discuss the dizzying number of new ways to watch television. Last week, for example, General Electric unit NBC started streaming some episodes to the Apple iPhone, and Microsoft added show downloads to its online store.

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