The future of television is getting really confusing.

Summer ratings for the broadcast television networks – CBS, ABC, NBC, Fox, and the CW, the networks that, through their affiliates, literally “broadcast” their programming – have been terrible.

According to Variety, CBS’ ratings have held steady, but ABC, NBC, and Fox’s are down by at least 20% over just last year — and, for the week of June 15-21, ABC actually saw its average weekly rating sink below a cable channel, USA, something that is believed to be a first.

Meanwhile, the ratings for many cable channels are way up.

“It’s the continuation of a trend that’s been going on since the early 80s,” says Bill Gorman, editor of the TV rating and analysis site TVbytheNumbers.com. “Viewers continue making the 30-year shift from watching broadcast to watching cable.”

With current cable hits like TLC’s Jon & Kate Plus 8 (with more than 10 million viewers), The Disney Channel’s Princess Protection Program (with more than 8 million viewers), and TNT’s The Closer (with more than 6 million viewers), cable networks now air five of the top 20 highest rating programs on television (compared to only two last year).

The premiere of the HBO fantasy show True Blood, meanwhile, drew an astounding 3.7 million viewers (5.1 million when you factor in an 11 PM repeat the same night). And this is on a pay cable network.

Ratings for the broadcast networks plunged last year too, and cable ratings rose, but the broadcast networks explained that away by saying it was because of last year’s writers’ strike which cut short the schedules of most of their premiere shows.

Instead, the year after the writers’ strike, the massive viewing shift has continued unabated. And February’s change from analog to digital broadcast brought even more more viewers into the cable fold.

According to Gorman, the shift from broadcast to cable is accelerating. “Cable is spending more money on their shows,” making them better, he says. “With more viewers, they have more money to spend.”

The broadcast networks have traditionally charged more for advertising than the cable channels — as much as twice as much per viewer. But at this year’s “upfronts” — the May event where the networks roll out their new shows and sell most of the advertising space for the upcoming year — advertisers balked. The two sides have been in a stalemate ever since, with advertisers openly threatening to move more of their ad dollars to cable.

What does the downfall of the broadcast networks mean for fans of fantasy programming?

Theoretically, cable networks would spend some of their new-found resources targeting under-served viewerships, such as fans of genre programming.

Some of that is happening, at least on premium cable channels. In addition to True Blood, HBO has given the okay to film a pilot for A Game of Thrones, their TV adaptation of George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice book series. Since the show is expensive to produce, and since HBO commissions few pilots that it does not air, it seems likely that the show will make it on television in some form.

And in January, Starz will premiere an ultra-graphic fantasy-esque show, Spartacus: Blood and Sand, created by Xena: Warrior Princess‘ Rob Tapert and Sam Raimi, and starring Lucy Lawless.

The Sci Fi Channel, meanwhile, offers occasional fantasy and more frequent fantasy-esque programming, including a new X-Files-type show, Warehouse 13, debuting Tuesday.

But also on Tuesday, The Sci Fi Channel is infamously changing its name to The SyFy Channel.

“If you ask people their default perceptions of Sci Fi, they list space, aliens and the future,” Sci Fi President Dave Howe told the New York Times in March. “That didn’t capture the full landscape of fantasy entertainment: the paranormal, the supernatural, action and adventure, superheroes.”

So will the newly-renamed SyFy Channel feature more fantasy and fantasy-esque program — or is “SyFy” simply an excuse for them to run more reality and “documentary”-style programming like Destination Truth and Ghost Hunters that they can produce much more cheaply than traditional scripted drama, but that is only tangentially related to fantasy, at best?

The channel, and Dave Howe, did not respond to repeated requests for an interview with TheTorchOnline.com on precisely this question.

The SyFy Channel is only the latest niche cable channel to blur its primary brand in hopes of expanding its viewership. TLC has had enormous success with Jon & Kate Plus 8 — but is that really programming you would expect to find on something called The Learning Channel?

“[Cable channel executives] realized there are only so many viewers in a niche,” Gorman says. “They’re starting to say, ‘I’m going for these 18-49 year-old women. Screw this little niche we’ve boxed ourselves into.’”

In other words, as the broadcast networks fall, some of the successful cable channels are starting to act increasingly like them.

“In some ways, more channels doesn’t always mean more choices,” Gorman says.

Still, it’s hard to believe the cable television landscape won’t be at least somewhat better for fantasy enthusiasts, who have been almost completely ignored by the broadcast networks for years. NBC and ABC have found success with Heroes and Lost, respectively, and NBC is currently offering viewers Merlin, a U.K. import.

But for the most part, only the CW (and its predecessor the WB), home to Supernatural, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed, and Smallville, has offered much variety in terms of fantasy programming.

By contrast, Xena: Warrior Princess, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, and a spate of other fantasy programming in the 90s and early 00s was syndicated, or offered to broadcast affiliates on an individual basis. Legend of the Seeker is a show currently in first-run syndication, and the show has been renewed for a second season, though its numbers are less than half those of Xena and Hercules in their prime, which doesn’t bode well for syndicated imitators.

The hey-days of the broadcast networks are almost certainly over. But only time will tell if what replaces them will be much better for fantasy enthusiasts.

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• “V” Really Is for “Victory” (In Terms of Ratings for the ABC Show)

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