Many antitrust lawyers think the case is a longshot. ''Breaking up Nielsen is extremely unlikely,'' says Washington, D.C. attorney John Briggs, former chairman of the American Bar Association's antitrust section. ``The last time that happened was with AT&T in 1982, and that was by consent.''

Whether the lawsuit succeeds or not, it's a telling gauge of the anguish in television. Even people meter critics admit that the device's fundamental message -- that technology is not only splintering the audience but allowing it to skip the commercials that are the foundation of the industry's business model -- is a sound one.

''When you're trying to figure out what people watch on TV, any change of methodology is going to be difficult and be accompanied by some problems,'' says Miami media consultant Julio Rumbaut. ``In Miami, because of the Hispanic component of the audience, it's going to be even more difficult. . . . But because there's a plethora of channels now, it stands to reason that the big broadcast audiences of the old days are going to shrink.''

INACCURATE DIARY SYSTEM

Many executives, in fact, say the people meters merely reveal a truth long hidden by the inaccuracy of Nielsen's burdensome old diary system.

''When Nielsen started rolling out the people meters, we saw right away that the diaries hadn't been picking up a lot of things viewers really did,'' says Ceril Shagrin, head of research at Univisión.

''People filled out the diary at the end of the week, and maybe they thought they watched a soap opera for an hour every single day. But the meter showed that maybe one day they were late and missed the first 15 minutes. Or people thought they watched a football game all the way through, but the meter showed they switched to check on the scores of other games a few times.'' Shagrin regards people meters as a huge improvement over diaries -- even though they show a drop of more than 10 percent in Spanish-language broadcast audiences.

The people meters picked up the same trends in South Florida as in other markets, trends that are remaking the face of TV programming:

• Audiences are leaving big broadcast networks for the hundreds of specialized channels on cable. That's less disastrous than it might appear for the broadcast nets, most of which also own cable channels: They're losing viewers out of one pocket, but gaining them in another.

But it spells big trouble for local stations, which unlike the networks don't have any way to recoup the advertising losses. One result: ruthless cost-cutting, especially in news departments, the single biggest item in local stations' budgets.

WFOR-CBS 4 laid off several journalists this month, and WFOR and WPLG-ABC 10 recently agreed to share a news helicopter. Nearly everybody expects that South Florida will soon lose some of its 850-plus hours of weekly TV news programming.

Even more menacing is the possibility that the networks, entranced by cable operations that not only sell advertising but collect subscription fees, will get out of broadcasting altogether. NBC is already selling off its local stations. (Only the economic collapse last fall saved South Florida's WTVJ-NBC 6 from changing hands.) And NBC, ABC and Fox are aggressively marketing shows on Hulu.com, a potential first step to sending programs directly to viewers instead of through TV-station middlemen. If the networks bolt, local stations would likely fill time with inexpensive syndicated talk shows rather than spend money to make new shows.

• Viewers are turning to TiVo and other digital video recorders rather than watching programs as they air. In Miami, DVR usage has jumped 50 percent since people meters arrived. One unexpected consequence: Ratings are plummeting for the 10 p.m. hour, when people are watching shows they taped earlier in the evening. That could be the death knell for some police procedurals like Law & Order. NBC has already given up on scripted programming in the time slot -- Jay Leno's new talk show will soon take over the hour on weeknights.

And because most DVR watchers skip commercials, both networks and advertisers are busily seeking new ways to reach viewers. The current favorite: sneaking products into shows, the way Fox has put Coke cups in the hands of its American Idol judges.

PRODUCT PLACEMENT

''You're going to see a lot of product-placement deals,'' says NBC's Bierbaum. ``You're going to see a lot of new things on television. You want a business model that is realistic and reflects reality. That's why the people meters are valuable. If people really are splitting off from the television mainstream, taking advantage of all the different choices available to them, it's better that everybody know that and deal with it.''

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