How digital is saving TV companies from extinction

Why would a late-night host on a major network potentially cannibalize his own ratings to conquer YouTube?

For James Corden, it was all about getting his name out to a new audience.

CBS's "Late Late Show" made this clear with its most popular segment, "Carpool Karaoke."

In it, Corden drives music's biggest stars around in a car while singing together on the artist's biggest hits (and sometimes others'). In February, the show's Adele segment became the most-watched video on YouTube.

"We wanted to make good content for television, but the thing we have least control over is ratings. The thing we have slightly more control over is relevance. The digital world is where you can make your relevance felt," "Late Late Show" executive producer Rob Crabbe told Adweek.

This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to traditional TV companies taking a page out of the digital playbook. The stakes couldn't be higher. Big shifts in viewership habits have been occurring right under their noses and now threaten their future viability.

The crisis for television companies is very real. The current "big four" are experiencing incremental decline in viewership year-over-year. Even more problematic is that their TV audiences are getting older and younger viewers are increasingly turning to alternative digital sources for entertainment.

A Nielsen study in October showed that in the last five years, there has been a 40% drop in traditional TV viewing by 18-to-24-year-olds. The time they previously dedicated to watching TV has moved to other activities and on multiple devices.

With that kind of wake-up call, it's no wonder entertainment dinosaurs are either teaming up with digital partners or trying to create their own new digital universe.

Here's a look a some of the biggest challenges traditional TV is facing and how they're finding the solutions in the digital and online world - with a few notable exceptions: