As I read the squinty jillionth article about competitors (this time, it was cable networks) salivating over the ratings land grab about to commence when The Jay Leno Show takes over NBC's 10pm hour on weeknights, it occurred to me that because NBC's ratings on weeknights at 10pm were so bad last season, there really aren't a lot of 18-49 demo viewers on NBC to "grab". (see here what Robert had to write on the same article)
Here's NBC's 10pm adults 18-49 ratings from last season:
| Shows | Adults 18-49 Season Avg. Rating | Minutes |
| Monday | ||
| MOWE | 2.0 | 535 |
| Medium | 2.4 | 1016 |
| Momma's Boys | 1.8 | 300 |
| Tuesday | ||
| L&O: SVU | 3.3 | 1620 |
| Wednesday | ||
| L&O | 2.1 | 1620 |
| Lipstick Jungle (2) | 1.5 | 721 |
| Thursday (1) | ||
| Southland | 2.4 | 1620 |
| Friday | ||
| Dateline | 1.5 | 1617 |
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Averaging those ratings, as best I can given the data, produces an average 18-49 rating at 10pm of 2.3. Not exactly knocking it out of the park every night. Hence, not a lot of ratings to lose.
I think it's a reasonable assumption that The Jay Leno Show will average the 1.5 adults 18-49 rating he did in Fall 2008 on The Tonight Show. Of course, your estimates may vary. (Even if you're incredibly pessimistic and assume Leno does a 1.0 demo rating, it doesn't change the conclusions that much.)
So, the big Leno land grab is over 0.8 adults 18-49 ratings points.
That's certainly a very nice boost if it all went to a single broadcast show (and a gigantic one if it went to a cable show), but that's not going to happen. It's going to get split up in a whole lot of little slices.
While I don't have season average 18-49 audience shares by show at 10pm, I do have household shares by show, and no weekday 10pm CBS show had a HH share over 14. So even if you imagine that the CBS shows will pick up an outsized 20-25% of the audience that Leno's going to "lose", that's ~0.2 ratings points. That amounts to a 7-8% boost in the demo ratings of the top 10pm shows. And that's best case, I think the audience will fracture in to even smaller slices.
Of course CBS (and ABC, and cable nets) will be happy to pick up whatever 10pm ratings they can, but The Jay Leno Show is hardly creating the TV equivalent of the Oklahoma Land Rush.
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Notes:
1. ER's 18-49 ratings average on Thursday last season was a 3.4, but it wasn't coming back, so including Southland's 2.4 as the full season average seems like a very optimistic estimate of what any NBC replacement might do in that hour. By the same token, I could have excluded Medium's results and NBC's average would have been lower, but without The Jay Leno Show, Medium would almost certainly be back on NBC this season.
2. Lipstick Jungle aired on both Wednesday and Friday, the numbers above are combined ratings for both days. For my overall average calculation, the fact that the days weren't split doesn't matter.
CNN non-scientific online poll:
Will you watch Jay Leno’s new prime-time show?
Always 8% 12180
Frequently 12% 19587
Occasionally 35% 56574
Never 46% 74030
Total Votes: 162371
Not that CNN.com “viewers” 100% equate to Jay Leno viewers, but the interest in the show is apparently rather tepid.
Not sure how that’s considered “tepid”, when 54% plan to watch the show at least once in a while…which is expected for a daily show anyways.
I was seeing that almost half (46%)saying Never and combined with Occasionally is 81%. Just another view.
I’m not sure that Leno will do THAT badly in the demo. What most people tend to forget is that it’s difficult to get high demo numbers when you’re doing late night. Conan’s doing worse than Leno now among 18-49s.
Michael, I think a 1.5 rating in the adults 18-49 demo is a reasonable guess for what Leno will *ultimately* average for the entire week at 10pm, but I admit it’s a guess based on his Tonight Show history, which may turn out to be not very applicable. Nothing between a 1.0-2.0 rating would shock me.
Back to the post above, were Leno to average a 2.0 rating, there’s almost no adults 18-49 loss for NBC from last season, and his show becomes a bonanza.
Bill: 2.4 for Southland might be optimistic, based on how it ended last season, but it’s the number we have to work with, since we don’t have $mega to buy Nielsen for your convenience…
…and I would bet my non-autographed Parminder Nagra poster that if Leno is closer to a 1.0 demo than a 2.0 demo this season, the NBC PR people will adjust the Southland numbers to make Leno look better, as well as delete the Medium numbers for the same reason.
And in calculating profits and losses, we have to remember that Dateline is ridiculously cheap, so its demo to dollars ratio is at least as good as anything else NBC has, except for Sunday Night Football…
…so if Leno can cop 1.5 or so, NBC will find a way to equate it in importance to the first transatlantic live satellite broadcast
All eyes on Leno now I see.
Although the first week won’t be a great indicator. I mean, they’re blitzing the show with big guests, as well as the first three days having Talent/Biggest Loser/Talent as the lead-ins. NBC may actually win the week, unless I’m forgetting something o_O
I’m guessing after a month we’ll have a good idea of what the show will do, as it will settle into its groove. And yeah I’d guess an average of about a 1.5 is pretty reasonable to expect, and good enough for NBC I’d bet.
It all depends on how big of a number Leno can pull during the premiere, and what the retention would be. Main stream humor, broad appeal, large fan base of about 5 million viewers of Tonight, i say he has a chance of delivering a solid 2.0 regularly, probably even more having certain guests on or when competing with repeats.
Mumbo, Don’t forget that NBC is always competitive on a weekly primetime average basis in the fall because of the 4 hour Sunday night football block. When 4/22 of your broadcast week is the NFL it’s much easier to do well on an average basis. In fact for this week (ends 9/13), they have 7 hours of primetime NFL & preview shows. They’re #1 in a sweep for sure.
This was my point a few months back, that there are no big 10pm shows anymore. The only series that consistently grabbed a 3.0+ rating at 10pm (weeknights only) were SVU, ER, CSI Miami/NY, The Bachelor and Private Practice. That’s it. And with ER gone, NBC dumping the hour if not necessarily a bad move. The competition is not really stiff at 10pm on any night.
I can’t recall any show making so much media and Internet buzz before it even began, it’s everywhere, mostly viral btw, so awareness must be at all time high for this kind of thing.
I’ve always been critical of those who assume the show will tank, because like you guys I get that it’s about increasing profit margin and not viewership. At the end of the day, though, what will really matter is whether the show is any good or not. It seems to borrow a little from Tonight and a little from The Daily Show and a little from the variety shows of yore. If it doesn’t work, a 1.0 wouldn’t be surprising. If it works, the better portion of the television watching world will know it’s there when nothing else is on, and if you look at the Fall schedule and consider that the CBS lineup slants decidedly towards the AARP crowd, nothing else in on OFTEN.
I’d also point out that not only won’t the move do much to positively impact cable ratings, it might actually injure them. Speaking practically, if Leno’s new show works, some people are going to type the number for NBC to see what he’s up to where before they might have channel surfed into the nether regions of cable and settled into some random rerun. It won’t be a huge dent; it might not even be a perceptible dent in ratings to two decimals, but it’s something they should think about before jumping up and down.
Cleraly NBC is saving money with Leno. Since I don’t own GE stock and don’t work for NBC, my question as I viewer is: where will the money they save go? Into better programs? Production values for 10PM shows have reached diminishing returns, so it would probably be talent – show producers, film stars who have seen better days, etc. And often we have seen big producers and stars tanking on TV without good writers, who usually can live off peanuts. Will it go into NBC’s cable propertioes, which are just on the cusp of being major players? Into buying significant slices of cable properties they will divide up with other media conglomerates? My fear is the money they save will go to golden parachutes and goodies for execvs like the late unlamented Ben Silverman.
I’m looking forward on how the Tuesday 10pm slot will fare with three new shows competing on broadcast (Good Wife, Forgotten and Leno)because that slot is up for grabs. The other nights will go to CBS most likely anyway.