• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, May 12, 2009

Television may just be in need of some good psychoanalysis; it needs to talk about its problems to its viewers.

Right now it doesn't do much of that. According to a new study by the University of Pennsylvania about the declines in the usage of TV news and newspapers, there were 900 articles about the drop in newspaper circulation -- and only 95 about the shrinking audience for  broadcast networks' newscasts.

On TV news shows themselves, there were 38 reports on falling newspaper readership and only six about the decline in  audience for national news broadcasts

Why is there less interest in TV than newspapers? Perhaps writing about TV news viewership declines leads to the broader, more complex issues of overall TV viewing itself.  While there has been a drop in overall network TV viewership, actual usage of TV keeps climbing. We are watching more TV in a more fractionalized way -- on many more TV channels.

The big TV news network operations are limited to niche business stories on the media -- mostly because of the 30-minute-per-hour a night time constraints. And over half the reports about the decline of TV news viewers came from cable news networks CNBC and Fox.

And perhaps it's easier to illustrate the decline in newspaper readers through articles  There's the Internet, after all. But this can be complicated too.  Internet readers tend to read one or just a couple of stories (as evidenced by the Wall Street Journal's proposed plan to have its readers pay per story).

Still, overall the media talks more about newspapers business problems than TV business problems.

Talking is good, and TV news shows should consider airing out its problems. Maybe the TV industry needs more drama, a breakdown or some schizophrenia to get coverage -- perhaps another metaphor for viewer fractionalization.