For seasoned tea-leaf readers of the future of TV in the UK, two stories will have stood out this week, swirling around at the bottom of their cups. There was the news that MTV is shutting down its music channels – sad for those of us who misspent their youth watching them, though hardly surprising either, given MTV’s decades-long shift away from music and towards rolling repeats of Teen Mom and shows about tattooists. And there was a media piece in the Guardian about the demise of British TV’s once-gold plated 9pm slot, which for the first time last month failed to achieve a rating of 1m or more among any of the major broadcasters.
That second story was a little surprising. Overnight viewing figures are in constant decline in the streaming age, but even by those standards, not one solitary rating over 1m is eye-catching.
