Does anybody really watch TV anymore?

That's the question I asked myself as I read the latest AP story delving into the "lost" audience of Jay Leno's move to primetime. The math of the story goes like this: "NBC has lost an average of 1.8 household ratings points at the 10 p.m. hour compared to fall 2008, according to the Nielsen Co. At the same time, DVR usage -- which is also measured by Nielsen -- is up by 1.4 points in that hour."

"The DVR phenomenon is a little bit higher than we thought," said David Poltrack, CBS' chief research executive.

It then points out that "many people watch CBS' "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" Thursdays at 9, tape ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" at the same time, then watch the medical soap an hour later, he said. They may tape "The Mentalist" (Thursday at 10) for later viewing. One casualty of growing DVR usage is that Friday nights, home of "Medium" and "Ugly Betty," are becoming a TV wasteland because so many people are catching up on programs they missed during the week."

To which I have one overriding comment: "Duh!"

The networks, I suspect, would like to think that American households actually do sit down and "watch" one TV show "live" and tape the other competing show from later viewing. And maybe that's how Americans consume TV ... today. But you can already sense the shift. In my household, for example, we hardly watch any live TV outside of sporting events. Everything -- over-the-air TV and cable TV -- is taped and then watched at our convenience, sometimes weeks later.

Not only is the consumer more in control as to what they watch and when, it is now possible for viewers to consume as much (or little) TV as they want and never, ever, view a commercial. It is this habit primarily, coupled to a lesser extent with the advent of being able to watch popular TV shows directly from the network on your computer and mobile device, that's altering forever the television marketplace.