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The Long Tail

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When the music rolled each week for "I Love Lucy" in the 1950s, it was a truly national American event. Nearly 75 percent of the country's TV households gathered at the TV screen for Lucille Ball and Ricky Ricardo — a true mass market.

Today, television's number-one, top-rated TV show — CSI: Crime Scene Investigation — draws just 15 percent of TV households. And Americans have scattered.

Wired Magazine editor Chris Anderson says we're going to scatter much wider still in the Internet age — down what he calls the "long tail" of highly personal interests and specialized products - via eBay and Amazon and YouTube into a new world of commerce and culture.

Hear about the end of the mass market as we've known it, and the way of the long tail.

Guests:

Chris Anderson, author of "The Long Tail" and editor of Wired magazine

Steve Zeitchik, reporter for Variety magazine

This program aired on July 18, 2006.

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