December 3rd, 2010
TNR has a great essay by Laura Bennett on Conan O’Brien’s new solipsisim. The only bit I’d disagree with is this line from Bennett:
DVR, Hulu, and YouTube have done away with the singular importance of the time slot. We can handpick clips to watch online and reshuffle programming to suit our own schedules by pressing “record.” And there is no longer much of a place for the generalized subject matter and stock formula of the late-night talk show—the monologue, interviews with movie stars who have a new project to hawk, a few interspersed sketches. Modern attention spans are too slim to accommodate bald self-promotion from celebrities and too readily able to seek customized entertainment elsewhere. Now, niche-iness is key, which is why Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are so popular. They are emphatically topical; Leno and Letterman, when it comes to shaping the national conversation, tend to be beside the point.
The DVR and Hulu have actually done very little to alter the importance of time slot. Just ask the shows that have been condemned to Fox’s Friday Night Slot of Death (Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, Dollhouse). Or shows like Big Bang Theory or Glee which found immense popularity by piggy-backing off of a monster lead-in. Time slots may not matter as much as they did ten years ago, but they’re still the single most important factor in a show’s ratings prospect. If I tell you that Show X airs at 8:00 p.m. on CBS, that tells you more about what number than show will draw than if I tell you the show’s premise, title, stars, budget, etc.
Secondly, late-night show’s don’t exist to provide self-promotion for the entertainment industrial complex. Providing that self-promotion happens to be what they do, but it’s not their raison d‘être. They exist to generate enormous net profits, via large ad revenues and cheap production costs, for their broadcast network. That’s what Letterman and Leno do for CBS and NBC, even in their diminished status. In 2006, Leno’s show accounted for 15 percent of NBC net profits. I very much doubt that John Stewart or Stephen Colbert do that kind of business for Viacom.
In a way, it is about niches, though. Stewart and Colbert’s niche gets them talked about; Leno and Letterman’s niche generates revenue.
Kit Pollard December 4, 2010 at 12:34 am
It’s a bit off-topic, but Glee is the only show I consider “appointment viewing” these days (demographics: I’m a married woman in my mid-30s) – and it’s all because of Facebook. That’s the only show I watch that’s discussed enough in real time on FB that it matters. Friday Night Lights probably would be in that class if more people had DirecTV and Top Chef definitely would fit if it were an hour earlier or maybe if it wasn’t “reality.”