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Well, actually, a big part of the decline was the recession, coupled with the subsequent switch to cable networks for a lot of the races.
For a while there, starting in 2001, you knew, week-in, week-out, that most of the races (27 of 36, plus the pre-Daytona non-points event) would be on one of two stations that you were basically guaranteed to have. FOX took the season up through Sonoma/Daytona, and NBC had the rest, plus the following year's Daytona 500 every other season. Quite a few people didn't have cable then, and even fewer have it now. Once you broke their viewing habit, and many of them couldn't watch the races on the new stations, what would you expect to happen to viewership?
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