In the Thomas Hall lounge Sunday afternoon, the Chicago Cubs-Pittsburgh Pirates game was on. Coverage of the golf major championship tournament, the Master’s, was on in the Taylor lounge.

The images on television screens have changed from Iraq war coverage to sporting events and other television shows only weeks after the conflict began.

CNN/US General Manager Teya Ryan told Business Week in an April 13 article that the decrease in ratings is expected.

“Do I expect the viewership interest to continue?” Ryan said. “No. I mean, let’s be realistic. That’s not unusual. Very little in our lives rises to the intensity of war.”

The Business Week article stated Nielsen ratings for three of the cable news stations jumped tremendously. MSNBC (357 percent) experienced the biggest jump, but CNN (305 percent) and Fox News Channel (239 percent) also had tremendous leaps in ratings.

A similar ratings jump was found with the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, but students’ input varied on whether they indeed watched more coverage at that time.

“I watched more of war coverage because Sept. 11 was a tragedy,” Brian Kuikman, a sophomore physical education major, said. “I didn’t want to watch it because it was too upsetting.

“That’s not saying war isn’t a tragedy, but at least we are accomplishing something to try to make things better.”

Whitney Sturm, a freshman communication disorders and sciences major, said she watched Sept. 11 coverage more.

“It had more of a direct impact because it was on our own land,” she said. “This seems so distant.”

Most students tuned in with great intensity to war coverage in the first days.

Christine Smallwood, a junior family consumer sciences major, said her television routine was altered in the first weeks of war.

“My roommates and I ended up recording the shows we normally watched on one television,” Smallwood said, while eating in the University Food Court Sunday afternoon. “And on the other television we were being big dorks watching war coverage.”

As the Nielsen ratings suggested, not only did college students watch war coverage, the rest of the nation did also.

Now, almost a full month after President George W. Bush delivered his speech giving Saddam Hussein and his sons an ultimatum to exile or face military action, public interest is down, the most recent Nielsen ratings show.

For students, those reasons vary from school work to the impression the United States is winning the war.

“There was a lot of hype at the beginning,” Kuikman said. “But now that we have accomplished some major things, I don’t watch as much.”

Sturm said she watches war coverage sparingly.

“I got busy with schoolwork, but it seemed to be repetitive anyways,” Sturm said. “They were showing the same things.”

Tamika Allen, a junior special education major and ex-military personnel, said she still watches the war a lot.