Several station chiefs appreciate the effort Leno makes to serve viewers up for local late news. “He was telling jokes right until then end, then, 'That's our show—here's your local news,'” says WSMV Nashville VP/General Manager Elden Hale of a recent night. “You didn't have time to reach for the remote.”
That keep-'em-hooked strategy is paying off for many NBC affiliates. WDIV, for one, posted an 11.7 household rating/22 share for its late news the week of Sept. 14—a significant boost over the 8.2 rating/16 share it averaged in September 2008. Moreover, Leno's 11.8 rating/20 share that first week at 10 was a major improvement for the time slot; a rare 10 p.m. ratings deliverer like Law And Order: SVU did a 9.5/14 on WDIV in May.
via Broadcasting & Cable.
Somewhat notable is the fact that no local station executive would speak, even off the record, negatively about The Jay Leno Show so far. Of course, there aren't any real alternatives for the local affiliates in the short term. And even in the long term any breaks with the network could be very (financially painful).
Yeah, clearly just mouth wash for a week where other nets were in repeats. I’d like to hear what Elden Hale of WSMV Nashville has to say about this weeks numbers. I’m sure he’s below his September 2008 numbers…
This is an interesting angle, to see how local newscast do with Leno as their lead-in. And what their numbers look like if Leno goes down substantially. I’d love to see occasional follow-ups on this subject.
Yeah, this week’s numbers will be more telling (from a lead-in perspective)
But considering what the normal 10pm occupants pulled in, I don’t think local news is feeling a negative impact as of yet.
SVU on Tuesday’s pulled in well over a 3.0 each week, while ER (not so much Southland) did the same. The only days NBC sucked was on Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays.
Had NBC not screwed with Law & Order’s 10:00 PM Wednesday slot, they’d have that too. Remember when neither CSI: NY or L&O could claim victory week after week because of the overlapping audience? Look what happened to CSI: NY when L&O/NBC conceded the night to them. Like someone else said, if NBC actually put time, effort and understanding in their development and not go for cheap like they are now, we might be seeing it fighting against ABC/CBS again and not losing badly to FOX of all networks. I don’t care how good Leno might do money wise because AS an advertiser, I wouldn’t put jack on NBC at 10:00 unless they’d take my two bucks for 10 seconds of ad space. It isn’t that expensive to run ads on NBC anyway, so I’m being nice with my willingness.
ER was lost regardless of Leno Show, so it would’ve been down to 4 out of 5 days had it kept SVU at 10pm.
Plenty of people are advertising on Leno for now, and you can bet they are paying commensurate with ratings. It’s more expensive to run ads on NBC at 10pm than any network besides ABC and CBS.
Certainly ratings are down for Leno this week, but I know one thing when it comes to local news I have my favorite station (either because the anchors are just a little bit less plastic or the weather person is better) and I’ll switch to that channel no matter what. NBC local affiliate has always been the leader here of the 10 PM news M-F (I’m in the midwest so ours is central time), and it will be interesting to see how there numbers hold up.
Yeah even with the numbers as they are now I don’t think the impact on local news ratings will be all that big. People have their favorites. I know I do (although I’m in Canada of course, so it’s none of the US nets).
I just checked with the one market I have access to and Leno has not helped that market. In fact, they are even a little bit down from the week before Leno. They were way up for the first night of Leno, which pushed the station that is normally #1 at 11 down, but by the second night they were already back to their usual numbers.