WK 2-3 4-6 7 8 9 10 11 M: 5.7 4.6 4.6/1.3 4.3/1.3 4/1.2 4.6/1.2 4.5/1.4 T: 6.7 5.8 6.1/1.8 6.5/2.0 5.7/1.4 6/1.8 4.9/1.9 W: 6.2 5.7 5.0/1.5 4.7/1.3 4.6/1.4 5.2/1.4 5.1/1.6 Th: 4.9 5.0 4.4/1.6 4.7/1.7 4.6/1.6 4.8/1.6 5.0/1.5 F: 5.6 5.5 5.1/1.2 4.6/1.2 4.7/1.2 5.1/1.5 3.5/1 AVE: 5.8 5.3 5.3/1.5 5.0/1.5 4.7/1.4 5.0/1.5 4.6/1.5
Times are such for the Jay Leno Show that from now on any week in which his average rating is 1.5 or higher must be considered a good week (even though is actually the minimum rating he can get and still be profitable for NBC, and most observers originally thought NBC had set this as a low bar that Leno would regularly and significant exceed). Leno had a 1.5 average rating for the week, so by that standard this was a good week for him. I knew this week would be hard to interpret - Sweeps ended in the middle of the week, and Leno was new vs reruns on Thanksgiving Thursday. It now seems even more complicated, because from what I can tell, contrary to some earlier reports, Leno was a rerun Friday night (in what may be a telling sign, I just watched the monologue off of my TiVo and still had trouble telling if it was a rerun, but there were not jokes about Thanksgiving or Tiger Woods, and there were jokes about Carrie Prejean's masturbatory sex tape, it did not seem to be fresh). The raw facts are that Week 11 was Leno's least watched week ever )average 4.6 million viewers). I had written previously that Leno's comeback seemed to signal a stabilization at around 5 million viewers, but this week could be seen as a comedown from that. However his average rating in the demo was stable at the bare minimum for success of 1.5, and of course there were just fewer television viewers this week. And if Leno really was in reruns on Friday (and for his sake I hope he was) it proves one thing - Leno should never, ever, be shown in reruns. his 3.5 Million viewers, 1.0 rating in the demo were both by far the lowest numbers he has ever drawn. While the good news for Leno may be that he has an advantage when other shows are in reruns (though this has not yet been established to be true) the bad news is that he himself seems to do so badly in reruns that I don't see how NBC can ever rerun the program in primetime. Whenever Leno goes on a break (I think he is scheduled for something like 4-5 weeks of vacation for the year) NBC, it seems to be, has to put something else on - maybe Carson reruns, or Dateline + specials, or even L&O reruns. Really, just about anything would probably be better than Leno reruns. The good news for Leno is that if you remove the horrible Friday numbers, this week was actually pretty good - his average rating was a 1.6, as good or better than previous weeks. The Thanksgiving Thursday show was probably a success - it tied for his second largest number of viewers for a Thursday (not counting premier week) ever at 5 million. OTOH, the rating in the demo was the worst he has had for a Thursday since I have been tracking this (the last 5 weeks) 1.5 instead of 1.6 or 1.7, which is odd since Thursday is usually a good night for Leno in the demo, if not in total viewership. I see now that his lead-in with a rerun of The Office wedding episode, so that probably explains it (I have been suspecting that his good demo numbers on Thursday were mostly due to The Office and supplemented by 30 Rock). Next week will also be difficult to decipher (frankly, there have not been many what you might call "normal" weeks since the Leno show began - I think almost every week I have to note some factor that made the week atypical, so I wonder what a typical week actually looks like?). I suspect many network shows will be in reruns. I have been waiting for a real "rerun" week (the first rerun week was not a good indicator in my view because it was not obvious most shows would be reruns. I think for most of December most people will be expecting a lot of reruns). This is where Leno is supposed to show his strength, and I am eager to see how he does. But of course this week he will be preempted by the Obama Show, and it will be Tuesday - usually his strongest night, and from what I have heard the lead-in show is having a much anticipated 2 hour program, which probably would really have helped Leno. Even in a good week Leno's weekly average would be significantly hurt if Tuesday numbers were deleted, so that will hurt him. Assuming we can somehow make an appropriate statistical adjustment for the absence of Tuesday numbers, and assuming that net week really is reruns (which I have not actually seen reported officially anywhere) Leno really needs to show an improvement next week over his recent ratings - I should think he needs something in the 5.3 million, 1.6 or 1.7 rating range to have any hope of validating the oft-repeated claim that the secret to his success will be cleaning up against the big 10:00 pm dramas when they are in reruns. -- 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
