On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 9:55 PM, Kevin M. <[email protected]> wrote: > I've seen the numbers you posted, but the ratings only tell a part of > the story. Assume Jay's show does, as the stories indicate, cost about > $300k per episode to produce (some say more, some say less, but that > seems to be the number tossed around more than any other). Compare > that to 5 shows costing anywhere from $1 million to $2 million to > produce. Then do the math on ad rates, which several of us posted here > a few weeks ago. Then look at 11pm newscast ratings from before the > most recent presidential election (Spring of 2007 maybe, since the > hype of "Decision 2008" overinflates more recent news ratings) and > compare those numbers to today's numbers. Then factor in the number of > people getting sports and weather info online who weren't doing so > three years ago. Now add into the mix the ratings for cable programing > like Daily Show and Adult Swim. Next factor in the devalued dollar, > and its effect on low advertising revenue. Then look at industries > that previously advertised heavily (credit card companies and auto > manufacturers) but have scaled back for both economic and public > relations reasons. And that is just a fraction of the math involved > here.
Just to be clear, I was not referring to any numbers I have posted. I am referring to some informed crunching of the kinds of numbers you refer to above (I would not specify them exactly as you have, and if anything the increased competition for ad dollars might make it even more important for local stations to get good ratings for their local news - but these are the kinds of things I am talking about). I can list some of the kinds of information, but it seems like it would not be too hard for some informed observer to do some back of the envelope calculations and identify where the make or break point is on Leno's ratings. I do understand the argument that using last year's numbers might be misleading because of the election, but: #1 - the reports we are getting so far is that NBC affiliates are down relative to last year more than affiliates of other networks and #2, It is not clear that local evening news really was up all that much last year. See, for example: http://www.stateofthemedia.org/2009/narrative_localtv_audience.php?cat=1&media=8 for a PEW Project for Excellence in Journalism study on 2008 locak news. "In 2008 local television remained the most popular source of news in America, but there were abundant signs of trouble. An analysis of data from Nielsen Media Research suggests that viewership of local news declined or was flat across all timeslots, during all sweeps periods during the year." Their finding was that local late news was down in 2008 from 2007 levels (cable and internet news were up). At the same time, local late news lost viewers at lower rates than early evening local news, making late local news increasingly more important for local stations. Clearly, there are a number of complex factors at work here, and it is far too early to tell how they all play out. It is also too early to judge how Leno is going to do in the long term - he could still either build, fall, or stay at his current 1.6, 5.3M level of viewership, which seems to be close to the minimally profitable level for all concerned. I don't think it is true however that the Leno show is so cheap that almost any level of viewership makes it profitable for all of the players involved. There is a point at which the ratings are so so low that, even if NBC is making a profit at the 10:00 hour, in the bigger picture they would lose money. The numbers on the other side of the equation are not just the lost ad revenue on the late local news, but also lost revenue on the Tonight Show (and maybe the other two shows that follow it?) and reduced profitability for dramas that used to run at 10:00 and now run at 9:00. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
