Prior to The Jay Leno Show taking over NBC's 10pm hour on weekdays, the network wasn't exactly burning up the ratings, and Jay's not doing much worse so far.
NBC's non-sports averages for 10-11pm weekdays for the 52 weeks prior to the debut of The Jay Leno Show were a Live+SD 2.2 adults 18-49 rating, a 2.7 adults 25-54 rating, and 6.9 million average viewers. Not a very high standard of performance.
Unfortunately, Nielsen no longer provides Live+SD season averages to us. Instead they provide "Most Current" averages, which are a combination of Live+SD data for recent episodes and Live+7 day for episodes more than 2 weeks old.
Given that the comparison is apples to oranges (but all I've got), here are The Jay Leno Show's "Most Current" averages through November 1, 2009.
Monday, 2.2 adults 18-49 rating, 7.235 million avg. viewers,
Tuesday, 2.3 rating, 7.058m
Wednesday, 2.0 rating, 7.053m
Thursday, 1.9 rating, 5.689m
Friday, 1.5 rating, 5.935m
Overall through 11/1/09: 1.98 adults 18-49 rating, 6.594m avg. viewers
Update: Julia calculated the Live+SD overall averages: 1.92 A18-49, 6.387m viewers
Note that Jay's show is very lightly DVR viewed (three of five episodes in the latest week we have data for had zero ratings increase between Live+SD and Live+7) which makes the Live+SD to Most Current comparisons more valid than for most broadcast primetime shows.
Those numbers are skewed up by the big premiere week, but they've also come during the most competitive time of the year, and they have been trending downwards, so the averages don't tell the entire tale.
Lot's of questions remain. What will Leno's ratings be during periods of sustained repeats by the competition during the regular season? What will they be during the summer?
Wow, Leno really is DVR-proof. Here are the Live+SD averages through last week, using the finals provided by Travis Yanan (didn’t include this week since it hasn’t finished yet.)
1.92 A18-49, 6.387m viewers
Being DVR-proof is a promise NBC can deliver on. Unfortunately for them, it’s also almost viewer proof too…
Julia, thanks, I added those numbers to the post.
Cancelled veterans ER, Medium as well as SVU did the best but NBC just couldnt afford to air new shows at the hour when it was cheaper to put on Leno.
I wonder if Leno would actually have better numbers than the five scripted shows that ran at 10pm last season and were canceled: Southland, Lipstick Jungle, Life, Medium, and The Listener.
Lenos numbers would have been slightly worse on average then your mentioned shows. (Possibly better than Life, Listener and Lipstick Jungle) The problem is no matter how the shows do, NBC cant afford to keep all of them and its not just about 10pm.
I think I finally figured out what I don’t like about Leno: He’s doing absolutely horrible everywhere in ‘new’ media. It’s not just DVRing where he is non-existent, it’s everywhere.
Hulu: As of right now, Leno is number #45 in views over the past week, ranking behind all three* ABC dramas available on Hulu. Remember: That’s five episodes of Jay, including a bunch of clips that can get passed around as easily as SNL clips do.
iTunes/Amazon: Not even listed on either of them, let alone having eps available
DVR: As evidenced above, 3% growth INCLUDING premiere week
DVD sales: Like most other talk shows, likely going to be non-existent to barely a blip.
Basically, anywhere but on the TV Jay Leno will not work. As more and more people turn to on demand programming rather than traditional scheduled, Jay will suffer and NBC will lose ground to other networks.
*the forgotten isn’t on Hulu anymore for whatever reason.
Wish I could edit, but above I meant all three ABC dramas that air at 10pm.
Your article fails to mention one important thing: local affiliates nightly newscasts. Fact: Jay Leno’s low ratings have negatively affected the local news that follows it nationwide. Even though prior shows in the 10 p.m. timeslot may have done slightly better than Leno, the news held strong. Not so with Leno, if people turn the channel when Leno’s on, they’re obviously not coming back an hour later to watch the news.
Rob, NBC would only care about its own O&O news slump. That’s just the way it is. NBC’s other affiliates can complain all they want, but there’s nothing they can do that won’t end up hurting themselves in the process.
J.R., yes but many affiliates are threatening to move Leno to another timeslot other than 10. I can’t imagine Leno doing much better at 8 or 9 or 2 a.m. When local affiliates start moving network shows, that’s a sign of the end.
Still comparing night to night, Leno is doing worse than NBC was last year, of course 10pm was nearly all scripted content, so the accountants should be happy.
The Jay Leno Show sucks!! Put it of its misery. There’s nowhere to go but down. The ratings are never going to get any better than they are now, re-runs or no re-runs.
I love that there are many ratings geeks who care about this stuff as much as I do.
Rob, there have been articles showing affiliates who don’t like Leno and those who say it hasn’t had a negative effect. I’ve seen none where anyone actually comes out and threatens to move Leno. I would love to see that one.
Julia, NBC’s Boston affiliate announced they would air their local news at 10, months before Leno’s premier. NBC immediately threatened to revoke the stations franchise.
Mike, that was months ago, before any affiliates had seen results. And they’ve been remarkably quiet since. I’m talking about now, after everyone has seen the results. There is definitely grumbling, and the anti-Leno press likes to make more of it than it really seems to be, but so far there have been no affiliates threatening to jump ship that I’ve seen.
Being almost 100% “DVR Proof” should be something that should interest sponsors.
Since many “scripted” shows are watched via the DVR…these shows could have a very high “content” rating but most of the viewers are probably skipping through all the commercial messages.
I -for one – do this all the time…and i’m not alone.
Bottom line…
The sponsor doesn’t give a F…. how many viewers the show has…they are only interested in how many suckers are watching their commercials.
So a show like Leno’s that is almost totally DVR proff probably has many many many more viewers watching the commercials.
They don’t have much choice.
If I were sponsoring a program…I would want a program that has the highest percentage of viewers ACTUALLY WATCHING MY COMMERCIAL.
That’s why…in addition the the low low cost…that the future of network television is talk,news, and reality shows.
Scripted shows are this centuries new “buggy whips”.
Leno is likely to stay where it is for a while. It seems NBC is satisfied with airing Leno at 10 but it cost them ratings by airing most of their usual 10pm dramas at 9.
Actually, Dan, most of NBC’s 10pm dramas were canceled, not moved to 9pm. Of the two that weren’t canceled, L&O was much more hurt by being moved to Friday than anything else, and it was just barely getting by at 10 last season, anyway. There’s only one show that can really be said to have been hurt by Leno, and that’s SVU.