Is NBC even trying anymore?

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by kcchief19

There is no way Leno will get half the audience of CSI on average.

Actually he should, or very close to it. CSI:Miami is only pulling a 4 around a these days, Leno should be able to get around a 2 by pulling only half the share he currently gets (for the unfamiliar, share = percentage of TVs in use at a given time where rating = percentage of all TV's period).

In other words, he can lose half his regular audience & still exceed the total just by picking up strays from the larger pool of viewers at 10p vs 1130p.

Is Zucker essentially saying NBC is a second-tier network and can't (or won't) compete with the CBS, ABC and Fox?

If so, he deserves credit for honesty. A lot of buyers already look at them that way for large chunks of their programming. If we're looking for older viewers we head to CBS, if we're looking younger/female we head to Fox or ABC. If we're looking to spend some remnant budget, we look to NBC.

edit to add: Truth is, there really may not be room for four "major" networks at this point. Once total cable viewership exceeded total broadcast viewership a few years back, there was a good bit less water in the pool and it seemed at least possible that we would eventually return to a Big Three (remember folks, Fox hasn't always been in the picture). NBC Universal has been bleeding money, just laid off 500 employees last week, eliminated the production of pilots for new shows entirely last spring, has been selling as many product placements as possible to defray production costs, and is getting closer and closer to having as many US viewers for Univision as for NBC. If that isn't a second tier network, well ... they're closer to being CW than ABC.

[kcchief19]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Actually he should, or very close to it. CSI:Miami is only pulling a 4 around a these days, Leno should be able to get around a 2 by pulling only half the share he currently gets (for the unfamiliar, share = percentage of TVs in use at a given time where rating = percentage of all TV's period).

I'll buy Leno getting a 2 share but are you sure about CSI:Miami's ratings? Are you just looking at a specific demo? The chart I've been looking at shows them with a 15 share so far this season for both the New York and Miami versions and a 13 for Without a Trace, all at 10 p.m. Leno's currently getting a 5 share in late night.

Leno has always outperformed my expectations, mostly because I hold a dim view of him as a performer. But a 5 share in late night is the same as a 5 share in prime time. A 5 share at 10 p.m. would be just under 5 million viewers. A 2-3 share -- which I think is likely -- it would be the lowest rated prime time show on the network. He might get beat by Gossip Girl.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by kcchief19

I'll buy Leno getting a 2 share

Actually I was prediciting about a 4 share or roughly half the around 8 he seems to get in late night. A 4 share (depending upon the night) would give him about a 2.5 rating.

ut are you sure about CSI:Miami's ratings? Are you just looking at a specific demo? The chart I've been looking at shows them with a 15 share so far this season for both the New York and Miami versions and a 13 for Without a Trace, all at 10 p.m. Leno's currently getting a 5 share in late night.

A 15 share for CSI is probably correct, it works out to around a 4 to 5 rating I believe. Something I looked at earlier put Leno in the 8's for share but it was a quick look at a few days so maybe I caught him on a good week or something (although the rating appeared slightly lower than his average).

But a 5 share in late night is the same as a 5 share in prime time.

Nope, you've got that backwards. Share varies with the number of TV's in use at a given time, it's number of viewers divided by number of persons watching television at that time. Rating is comparable across all dayparts as it's simply number of viewers divided by total viewers in the given universe (regardless of whether they're watching TV, sleeping, working, whatever)

edit to add: FTR, that last bit wasn't meant to sound snippy or anything. It can sometimes take a second to remember which is which even when you work with the stuff everyday.

[kcchief19]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

If so, he deserves credit for honesty. A lot of buyers already look at them that way for large chunks of their programming. If we're looking for older viewers we head to CBS, if we're looking younger/female we head to Fox or ABC. If we're looking to spend some remnant budget, we look to NBC.

edit to add: Truth is, there really may not be room for four "major" networks at this point. Once total cable viewership exceeded total broadcast viewership a few years back, there was a good bit less water in the pool and it seemed at least possible that we would eventually return to a Big Three (remember folks, Fox hasn't always been in the picture). NBC Universal has been bleeding money, just laid off 500 employees last week, eliminated the production of pilots for new shows entirely last spring, has been selling as many product placements as possible to defray production costs, and is getting closer and closer to having as many US viewers for Univision as for NBC. If that isn't a second tier network, well ... they're closer to being CW than ABC.

Sadly, this is true. NBC has no plan to get better and really doesn't know what their doing. NBC just has a bizarre lineup. I think The Office and 30 Rock work together well but the rest of their shows are just a huge conflict. Nothing fits together and flows well. They do reality, but they do bad reality.

But what makes it all the more baffling is that we're really talking about NBC Universal -- a company that produces Monk, Psych, Project Runway, Top Chef, Battlestar Galactica, Burn Notice, In Plain Sight and The Starter Wife -- a collection of shows that are almost all more critically acclaimed than anything on their air right now. Most of these shows usually dominate their time slots on cable and occassionally even beat network fare.

NBC has tried given test runs of those first five shows in prime time with stale reruns with more success than you'd think. NBC wrote off Monk and Psych's runs last spring as failures despite the fact that a rerun of Monk beat reruns of The Simpons and King of the Hill in the same time slot. Why they think that is a failure I have no idea.

Given how much trouble NBC has had developing shows on their network, I have no idea why they aren't promoting their successful cable shows to the big leagues. Reruns of Monk and Psych were drawing an average of 5 million viewers on NBC. Originals of 30 Rock and The Office are only drawing 7-8 million some nights. Both shows beat their competition on NBC in total viewers and their demos are spectacular. Heck, Burn Notice is in one of the toughest time slots on TV and it has actually won the night against cable and network TV on occasion among men.

All of these shows would certainly have bumps in their audience from their cable draws if NBC aired originals on a regular schedule.

[kcchief19]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Nope, you've got that backwards. Share varies with the number of TV's in use at a given time, it's number of viewers divided by number of persons watching television at that time. Rating is comparable across all dayparts as it's simply number of viewers divided by total viewers in the given universe (regardless of whether they're watching TV, sleeping, working, whatever)

edit to add: FTR, that last bit wasn't meant to sound snippy or anything. It can sometimes take a second to remember which is which even when you work with the stuff everyday.

Sorry, that was my bad ... I left out a very critical word. I meant to say a 5 share in late night is NOT the same as a 5 in prime time. Makes more sense, eh?

I'm looking at this chart which I believe to be reliable:
http://tv.zap2it.com/tveditorial/tve_main/1,1002,272|||season,00.html

Season to date has CSI: Miami with a 9.6 rating, a 15 share and 14.95 million viewers.

Here are the late night ratings form the November sweeps:
NBC “Tonight,” 1.3 rating, 5 share, 4.924 million viewers
CBS “Late Show,” 1.1/5, 4.050 million
ABC “Nightline,” 1.3/5*

I admit, I'm pretty surprised at how low the share numbers are for those three shows combined. Only 15% of the people watching TV are watching those shows? What in the hell are the other 85% watching? Granted I think 1% are watching Colbert and 2% are watching Adult Swim. After that ... I'm drawing a blank.

If Leno posts a 1.3 rating in prime time, it'll be a disaster. Rosie O drew a 1.2. I just don't see him building on his late night audience.

[Scoobz0202]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

why is leno dvr-proof??

"

[Young Drachma]

Seems like a coup of a move to keep a property that they'd certainly have lost to another network. Even if it fails, it's a low risk move for NBC. I never watch him, but...it's certainly a bold move.

[DaddyTorgo]

i can't fathom leno building on his late-night audience honestly. i think for better or worse most people have a "set roster" of shows that they watch during a week or any given night, and throwing a 5 nights a week show into primetime isn't going to fly. sure maybe you get one or two nights a week depending on his guests (but there's a fairly finite number of currently-hot guest stars so how they allocate them starts to become a problem), but I don't seriously think you can hope to get 5 nights a week of people watching your network from 10-12:30am just by offering them essentially two hours of the same thing with a half hour of news in the middle. It'll get stale very fast. Are Leno and Conan even going to be able to crack different jokes??

And I don't think Leno is at all DVR-proof. Really do you know anyone anymore who comes into work and goes 'man did you see Leno last night? Wow that was awesome." Because I sure as hell don't.

[Butter]

DVR-proof meaning that people won't DVR Leno's show and skip the commercials, I assume. If they watch it, they're going to watch it "live".

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Butter_of_69

DVR-proof meaning that people won't DVR Leno's show and skip the commercials, I assume. If they watch it, they're going to watch it "live".

+1

It's not a show considered to have much appeal beyond it's live run, you either watch it or you don't.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

+1

It's not a show considered to have much appeal beyond it's live run, you either watch it or you don't.

to me that's just fundamentally ignorant on the part of advertisers. I think pretty much everyone with a DVR has figured out that you can start a half hour show roughly 9 minutes late and an hour long show roughly 17 minutes late and be caught up perfectly at the end. Even if they haven't figured out the exact amount of commercials I think everyone with a DVR realizes that you can start a show late and not have to watch the commercials, and I don't see why Leno would be immune to that...particularly in a more conventional 10pm time slot.

[BrianD]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

to me that's just fundamentally ignorant on the part of advertisers. I think pretty much everyone with a DVR has figured out that you can start a half hour show roughly 9 minutes late and an hour long show roughly 17 minutes late and be caught up perfectly at the end. Even if they haven't figured out the exact amount of commercials I think everyone with a DVR realizes that you can start a show late and not have to watch the commercials, and I don't see why Leno would be immune to that...particularly in a more conventional 10pm time slot.

I can't believe many people watch TV that way. If you care enough to have caught up by the end of the show, you probably aren't going to wait 17 minutes in just so you can miss commercials. Most people will record the whole show to watch whenever, or possibly catch a show in progress if they happen to have time for it in the middle. Generally people won't record a show they are planning to watch live. I'd be very surprised if Leno got recorded often beyond someone wanting to see a particular celebrity interviewed.

[Logan]

I think DT misunderstood a bit...think more along the lines of "using a DVR to watch it at a later date" instead of "using a DVR to skip commercials."

If I'm up, I'll watch Conan as it's one of my favorite shows. But I won't DVR it and then catch up on it when I'm home from work or on the weekends. It's the show's premise of more or less talking about the current day's news that removes that desire from people. But I'll DVR a bunch of other comedy/drama types because it doesn't really matter when I watch it.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Logan

I think DT misunderstood a bit...think more along the lines of "using a DVR to watch it at a later date" instead of "using a DVR to skip commercials."

+1

[kcchief19]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

to me that's just fundamentally ignorant on the part of advertisers. I think pretty much everyone with a DVR has figured out that you can start a half hour show roughly 9 minutes late and an hour long show roughly 17 minutes late and be caught up perfectly at the end. Even if they haven't figured out the exact amount of commercials I think everyone with a DVR realizes that you can start a show late and not have to watch the commercials, and I don't see why Leno would be immune to that...particularly in a more conventional 10pm time slot.

That's not how most people watch shows on DVR though. They DVR them and watch them later. If I'm home and 30 Rock comes on, I'll watch 30 Rock, not do something else until 8:39 and then watch. If I DVR it, it's because I'm watching it another time completely, not just to time delay by a few minutes.

The reality of late night shows is that most people fall asleep while watching them. No one is going to any great lengths to watch Leno. Like Jon said, if it's on while they're going to bed, they'll watch.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by kcchief19

That's not how most people watch shows on DVR though. They DVR them and watch them later. If I'm home and 30 Rock comes on, I'll watch 30 Rock, not do something else until 8:39 and then watch. If I DVR it, it's because I'm watching it another time completely, not just to time delay by a few minutes.

Maybe that's not how most people do it, but that's how I do it. I know I've done that with "Lost" on a number of occassions. We just did other stuff until around 9:40 or 10:40 or whatever and then started watching it.

Typically, even if I'm home with nothing to do, I will just do something else and then watch my shows in the morning.

Other than sports and the rare occassions (maybe once, twice a year tops) when I get together with friends to watch a show, I can't remember the last time I watched a show "live".

[cuervo72]

I do it all the time with sporting events. I'll put the tuner on the correct station, take care of whatever I need to do (this could be going out to lunch after church, getting the kids ready for bed Sun/Mon night, etc), then catch up later.

For non-sporting events I'll tape the show then watch it later.

[Logan]

Just as a side note...I don't know if it's exclusive to the three DVRs in my apartment, but the TWC DVR sucks so much when it comes to resuming from fast-forwarding (I hit stop and then it continues to fast-forward a bit more so it goes into the show, then I rewind a bit too much, and then go forward too much again, etc) that even when I'm watching a show on DVR, I usually end up sitting through commercials just so I don't want to kill myself from dealing with that hassle.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

Maybe that's not how most people do it, but that's how I do it. I know I've done that with "Lost" on a number of occassions. We just did other stuff until around 9:40 or 10:40 or whatever and then started watching it.

Typically, even if I'm home with nothing to do, I will just do something else and then watch my shows in the morning.

Other than sports and the rare occassions (maybe once, twice a year tops) when I get together with friends to watch a show, I can't remember the last time I watched a show "live".

I never watch anything live either (except sports). But, this show would not be one I'd wait to watch. If I watched, it would be just to kill some time before bed. I can see how it will work for NBC, but it just sucks because it means less actual programming. Of course, they basically did this with Dateline a few years back.

[BrianD]

Originally Posted by Logan

Just as a side note...I don't know if it's exclusive to the three DVRs in my apartment, but the TWC DVR sucks so much when it comes to resuming from fast-forwarding (I hit stop and then it continues to fast-forward a bit more so it goes into the show, then I rewind a bit too much, and then go forward too much again, etc) that even when I'm watching a show on DVR, I usually end up sitting through commercials just so I don't want to kill myself from dealing with that hassle.

If your TW DVR is like mine, you probably have a button that will jump backwards 3-5 seconds. This works pretty well to back you up without rewinding too far. You can also stop the FF process with this button so you always jump back 5 seconds to cover the reaction time. Also make sure you fast forward at a speed you can handle. My DVR has 4 speeds of FF but I always use speed three to get the timing down. After a while you can generally feel the amount of time needed to get past a commercial break.

[SirFozzie]

Logan: That's why I love my tivo and it's programmable 30 second skip

While watching a playback enter the following code:

Select - Play - Select - 3 - 0 - Select

(you should hear three dings when you do this.)

Then your skip to beginning/end button (kinda looks like ( >| ) becomes a thirty second skip button

Not only is it great for screaming through commercials, I've found it useful to speed through taped football games. As soon as the play ends, hit the button, and usually you're at the next play (usually thirty seconds or so between plays)

[BrianD]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

Logan: That's why I love my tivo and it's programmable 30 second skip

While watching a playback enter the following code:

Select - Play - Select - 3 - 0 - Select

(you should hear three dings when you do this.)

Then your skip to beginning/end button (kinda looks like ( >| ) becomes a thirty second skip button

Not only is it great for screaming through commercials, I've found it useful to speed through taped football games. As soon as the play ends, hit the button, and usually you're at the next play (usually thirty seconds or so between plays)

I miss that functionality with my old ReplayTV. It actually had a 30 second skip button and a 5 second replay button. Program a nice little macro for 4 30-second skips and it was practically a one-touch commercial skip.

Thinking about that, with some playing I could probably program the TW DVR to do something similar by 3-speed FF with a short delay before turning back off...

[Desnudo]

It seems like there's a lot worse shows out there than My Own Worst Enemy. Slater is a decent actor and I thought the bald guy was funny.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by kcchief19

Sorry, that was my bad ... I left out a very critical word. I meant to say a 5 share in late night is NOT the same as a 5 in prime time. Makes more sense, eh?

I'm looking at this chart which I believe to be reliable:
http://tv.zap2it.com/tveditorial/tve_main/1,1002,272|||season,00.html

Season to date has CSI: Miami with a 9.6 rating, a 15 share and 14.95 million viewers.

Here are the late night ratings form the November sweeps:
NBC “Tonight,” 1.3 rating, 5 share, 4.924 million viewers
CBS “Late Show,” 1.1/5, 4.050 million
ABC “Nightline,” 1.3/5*

I admit, I'm pretty surprised at how low the share numbers are for those three shows combined. Only 15% of the people watching TV are watching those shows? What in the hell are the other 85% watching? Granted I think 1% are watching Colbert and 2% are watching Adult Swim. After that ... I'm drawing a blank.

If Leno posts a 1.3 rating in prime time, it'll be a disaster. Rosie O drew a 1.2. I just don't see him building on his late night audience.

Late night talk shows have been getting hit hard because that is typically the time people watch their DVR'd shows. Apparently they've been seeing a good drop in it as DVR has gotten more popular. But even though the ratings aren't good, they are when you factor in the costs of producing the show.

[Logan]

Interesting DVR tips, thanks guys.

[Logan]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

Now we have a couple new shows coming out:

Momma's Boy

Seriously, this is the kind of stuff I would come up with if I was drunk and joking around with friends on what the worst shows I could possibly create.

Fuckin A, I just found out that a kid I grew up with, Rob Kluge, is going to be on the show with his mother, possibly for the premiere (which could be the entire series run I guess).

I haven't seen him or his mother in a really long time, but I'm 99% sure this is being played up for TV. Not that it makes it okay.

Momma's Boys - Momma's Boys "Trailer" - Video - NBC.com

[Thomkal]

Originally Posted by Logan

Fuckin A, I just found out that a kid I grew up with, Rob Kluge, is going to be on the show with his mother, possibly for the premiere (which could be the entire series run I guess).

I haven't seen him or his mother in a really long time, but I'm 99% sure this is being played up for TV. Not that it makes it okay.

Momma's Boys - Momma's Boys "Trailer" - Video - NBC.com

No relation to me, I promise.

[cuervo72]

Heh.

[Logan]

I didn't realize the same guys would be on for the entire run of the show.

I made it about 15 minutes, enough to see the shots of Marlboro and to realize that watching any more would make my eyes bleed.