[Jack Simth]

There's also a downard spiral in how they run the ratings - it's how many people of those checked watched that show at that time compared to other shows at the same time, not the percentage of participants who watched and were home at that time.

So that show that got on at a time of day when everyone who had a job was at work, gets just those who were at home watching TV while everyone was at work. So a show that appeals well to the non-working crowd gets huge ratings for it's time slot.... and then is shipped into prime time, as are a lot of clones of that type of show.

Next year, when everyone's home, there's nothing on that appeals to the crowd that works every day (as all the stuff that appeals to the people who don't is what ended up in prime time) and so they don't watch anything much when they are home.....