Quote Originally Posted by Layfan View Post
What's the point? I don't know... I definitely think the decline has a lot to do with the lack of a U.S. ladies star. The COP doesn't help probably but I think the networks would still be inclined to cover figure skating more aggressively if there was a compelling story line. But I also think figure skating is one of those things that is suffering from the modern pop culture world of endless sources of entertainment on the internet, netflix, reality tv etc. in the 1980 and 90s there still weren't as many choices so Tonya-Nancy and then Michelle-Tara were among the best reality TV shows around.
It's interesting that he's a man and knew the popular skaters from the 1990s and today most women couldn't identify the top skaters in the world. I never thought about the fact that women have more entertainment choices on TV these days until you mentioned it. That certainly could have an effect on viewership since we do have a wide variety of reality shows to choose from, with more personality and drama than we see in the sport of figure skating.