WEEK 1 2 3 4 5 Monday: 18.4 5.67 5.64 4.3 4.9 Tuesday: 10.7 6.3 7.12 6.2 5.8 Wednesday: 13.1 6.4 5.99 5.74 6.2 Thursday: 8.8 4.99 4.96 4.85 5.2 Friday: 7.4 5.68 5.49 5.33 5.0 Average: 11.7 5.81 5.84 5.28 5.4
Leno had a better week 5 than week 4 - it looks like that horrible Monday in week 4 was a result of the Farve MNF game on the east coast. But he still had his second worst week of the season. That was probably partly due to Friday's show, which was up against a playoff baseball game (and Leno posted his worst Friday rating of the season). If I were NBC I would be relieved today - Leno viewers who watched the football game last Monday came back to him, and he got back close to the average of 5.5M for the week, even during MLB playoffs. When the playoffs are over if he is back to the 5.5 - 5.9 range, I would think they would be right where they want/need to be. If I were NBC I would also have learned a few things from the first 5 weeks. One is that Leno's ratings seem to be extremely sensitive to his lead-in, more so than the average television show. Tuesday is one of his best nights, not because he has a different kind of show on then, but because the 9:00 show (I think it is the weight loss program) does well - and when that lead in does great, so does Leno. One thing NBC should be doing is research on what kinds of programs Leno viewers like to watch at 9:00, and put as many of those on their schedule as possible. It seems likely that there could be two 9:00 NBC programs, each of which draw around 7M viewers, but for one of them 85% would stick around for Leno, and the other only 50% would stick around for Leno. NBC should be making sure it has the first kind on as much as possible. One good thing for Leno was NBC getting 30 Rock back at 9:30, which I read did not do as well as it did last year, but still gets more viewers than Community did, and so delivers more to Leno. A commentator on TV By The Numbers reported that over the last two weeks Leno has devoted less time to celebrity interviews and more time to what the commentator called third rate farmed out comedians, (and what I heard Leno refer to over the summer as his Daily Show like correspondents). I have to admit to not watching Leno since the show after the Dave-story broke - I wonder if anyone can confirm this report? If it is true, NBC should be learning something from this too, since Leno's ratings have dropped over the last two weeks as well. >From the shows I watched during the first 3 weeks it was clear to me that the only parts of the show that were even remotely watchable were the interviews with interesting celebrities. I should think this would be at least mildly disappointing (and perhaps more devastating than that) to NBC. The way both Leno and the NBC people have talked up this show over the summer, they see it as a comedy show, not a talk show, and they see themselves as delivering hilarious comedy bites. I am sure that Leno thought that eventually viewers would tune in to see these comedy pieces on their own, and that the celebrity interviews would become secondary - and perhaps even fade away on some or most nights. I think that is unlikely to happen. Leno needs high powered celebrities to justify the program, and that can not be good news to NBC, which must have been thinking that after a few weeks of feeding big names to Leno to launch the show, it could go back to feeding them to Conan and help him in his battle with Dave. This is what I would consider for Leno - start scheduling stars from the most popular of the 8:00 and 9:00 shows on at 10:00 the same night and have them talk a little about that particular episode, maybe bringing outtakes or unseen episodes, so it would function like those DVD "extras". If it is Dateline or a news program, bring on one of the correspondents and talk about one of the key stories. This avoids burning off too many A list celebs that Conan needs, and would help carry over viewers from that earlier show. At this point, Leno is not there to pimp the other NBC programs, like he did on the Tonight Show, he needs to parasite off of whatever viewers those other shows have himself. One more thing - after reading TV By the Numbers pretty regularly for a month now, it is clear those guys have a strong rooting interest for Leno (and I think a weaker rooting interest for Conan vs Dave). I don't mean to suggest that this bias distorts their reporting of the numbers, or that there is anything inappropriate about it, and it may be just that they predicted the Leno experiment would be a success and they are fighting what they perceive to be the conventional wisdom that it is a failure. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
