>From what I can gather (see links below), these are Leno's ratings for the first 4 nights (experts please correct if necessary):
Monday: 18.4 Million Tuesday: 10.7 Million Wednesday: 13.1 Million Thursday: 8.8 Million Friday: ??.? Million This first week is a real anomaly (remember Katie's first week) as it combines both curiosity viewers with opportunity viewers from lack of first run competition, plus what probably is a higher than average star wattage on the guest list. The TV by The Numbers guy points out that NBC and Leno have been making a big deal of the claim that their real advantage is the third of the year or so when they will be first run against the other guy's re-runs, so the fact that Leno lost to a re-run of the Mentalist Thursday night, even with Halle Berry and Eric Clapton, can't bode well. Bill Carter claims that these numbers belie predictions that Leno would show a precipitous loss from his day one numbers, but by my calculator the Thursday ratings are less than half of the Monday ratings (47.8 %), which seems like a pretty steep decline. Apparently the Wed bump was from the "America's Got Talent" lead-in (I did not know that show as so popular - I've never seen it). Conversely, the Thursday numbers must be particularly disappointing, not just because of the loss to the rerun on CBS, but it came on the premier night for all of the NBC sitcoms - though Leno did improve on its immediate lead-in, Community (which was a better show than I had anticipated). I have found the Leno shows to be just awful all week - significantly worse than I had anticipated, with no sign of improvement. I can watch Halle Berry do nothing for 8 minutes with some satisfaction anytime, so that was fine, and I would say the comedian he has last night was probably the least bad bit I have seen on the show so far. The "look how stupid people are" montage at the end was predictably bad, and I suppose means that Friday nights will be the home of the dreaded "Jay Walking" bit. Ugh. I still think this will probably be business success for NBC, at least in the limited sense of getting more profit out of its 10:00 pm hour. It looks like there is a good chance of Leno averaging in the 7 million viewer range when the real competition begins, and that will be just fine. I have always thought that long term NBC has a problem, as it now has little or no way to develop quality programming in the even it ever wants/needs to get out of the Leno hour at 10:00 (I suspect it will cannibalize programming from its cable outlets at first when the time comes). But I see now a new problem for Leno; while he may make money for himself and NBC masters, what will be the downstream consequences for his reputation and sense of self of being a marginal player in the national mind? At 11:35 he was never a Johny Carson, but apparently for a majority of people who watch late night TV he was still something of a touchstone. Now, even though he will get more nightly viewers, he will get a much smaller percentage, and the response to the question "Did you see what was on Leno last night" will not be "Yes" by a majority of people watching TV during his time slot, but more "No - I was watching something else". I don't even know what advice I would give to turn this into the kind of show I might like to watch. I think he probably had to keep his monologue, though as biased as I am I don't think I have heard a joke all week that has made me laugh. After that I would give him some desk (or now, I suppose, chair) time to talk about the events of the day on his own, then bring out a guest that he can have a real conversation with ( I would actually like to see a format where the guest interview Leno as much or more than Leno interview the guest. That would give us a novel glimps at the celebrity, and make Leno much more likable). Then maybe give him 1 comedy bit to do at the end. I might watch that once in a while. http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/17/a-winning-wednesday-for-leno-and-nbc/ http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/09/18/the-jay-leno-show-beaten-by-the-mentalist-in-total-viewers-big-deal/27660 On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 9:28 PM, PGage <[email protected]> wrote: > On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 8:28 PM, Kevin M. <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> He only lost 7 million viewers in 24 hours. That's all. No big. >> >> What? >> >> http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090916/media_nm/us_leno_6 > > He could lose 3 million more and still be successful...problem is, > with as crappy as the first two episodes have been, he just might lose > more than that once he is up against actual competition. > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
