The major networks have found that watchers of broadcast TV have declined by 2.5 million viewers from a year ago, and, amazingly, they’re wondering where all those viewers went. They need to get with the program.

While the TV broadcasters claim that they represent the vast majority of viewers of TV content and the revenues from Internet viewing are small, they’re still seeing a steady decline in their audience. The situation is similar to the eroding CD sales in stores.

Mike Elgan at Computerworld had some suggestions.

1. Get a grip on the TiVo situation. So far, deferred viewing has not counted towards advertising revenue. [But that’s changing.]

2. High Definition TV is taking off fast, but the networks aren’t keeping up with the conversion. Viewers find the quality of video they watch on their computers superior to SD, even on an HD TV.

3. Many people are too impatient to sit for long periods of time and have gravitated towards shorter video clips. [For example, Veronica Mars has suffered from long. convoluted story arcs.] Also, the captive audience sensation of being tied to the living room TV when there is so much freedom and flexibility on the Internet [and iPods] has lured many viewers away.

"Who’s killing TV? You can blame technology," Mr. Elgan concluded. "But ultimately you’ve got to blame the networks themselves for failing to adapt. It’s time to wake up and realize that technology is serving up both challenges and opportunities. It’s time for them to stop acting confused and get with the programming."