Compulsory figures began to be progressively devalued in 1967, when the values of both compulsory figures and free skating were changed to 50 percent. In 1973, the number of figures was decreased from six to three, and their overall weight was decreased to 30 percent, to make room for the introduction of the short program. Hines stated that the decrease in the importance of compulsory figures was due to "the unbalanced skating" of women skaters such as Beatrix "Trixi" Schuba of Austria, whom Hines called "the last great practitioner of compulsory figures". Schuba won several medals in the late 1960s and early 1970s based upon the strength of her figures, despite her lower results in free skating. As Hines stated, "she could not be defeated under a scoring system that gave preference to figures". Hines also credited television coverage of figure skating, which helped to increase popularity of the sport, with the eventual demise of compulsory figures. Television audiences were not exposed to the compulsory figures segments of competitions, so they did not understand why results contradicted what they saw in free skating segments. Sports writer Sandra Loosemore agreed, stating that television was "the driving force" for the rule changes regarding figures in 1968 and the years following. Figures were not broadcast on television because they were not exciting enough, so viewers "found it incomprehensible that competitions could be won by skaters who had built up huge leads in the figures portion of the event but gave mediocre performances in the part of the competition shown on TV". In 1973, the ISU lowered the value of compulsory figures from 50% to 40% and decreased the number of figures skaters were required to perform. In 1977, the number of types of figures skaters could choose to perform decreased even more, down to six figures per competition.