As pair of articles in The New York Times this weekend indicate, the recent announcement that Jay Leno would be taking over NBC’s weekday 10pm timeslot is another indication that Digitial Video Recorders are changing the nature of television:
The announcement of Mr. Leno’s show continues to reverberate on studio lots and executive corridors here, as the Monday-through-Friday “strip” is unprecedented in the modern network television era. NBC framed the decision in terms of competitiveness and cost-effectiveness, because it defuses the risk of Mr. Leno’s move to another network and saves untold millions of dollars a year. But it also reflects the increasing irrelevance of the network schedule.
The irrelevance is partly because of digital video recorders, the bane of many a television executive. Viewers in the 28 percent of homes with DVRs are recording programs at 8 and 9 p.m. and playing them back later in the evening, hurting the 10 p.m. hour. Of the 10 prime-time programs that gained the biggest audience from DVR usage this year, none were on at 10 p.m.
The biggest gainers from DVR viewership were dramas. According to statistics on time-shifting released by Nielsen Media Research on Friday, the NBC series “Heroes” benefited the most from DVRs, with a 35 percent increase in its audience after seven days of time-shifted viewing. The new Fox drama “Fringe” experienced a 26 percent increase, and the ABC series “Lost” had a 25 percent increase.
But TV recording is only one component of a larger shift in entertainment consumption. Time-shifting of all sorts — a combination of DVRs, Internet video viewing, cable repeats, DVD sales and other viewing patterns — is having a profound impact on all the networks. The always-on nature of content, inspired by the Internet, is freeing consumers from the previously all-powerful schedule. And it is making the networks think more like cable channels, which tend to repeat shows more often.
“The whole nature of TV has become a lot more viewer-friendly,” said Robert C. Wright, the former chairman of NBC Universal and a senior adviser to Thomas H. Lee Capital. “There are more opportunities than ever before for people to watch a program that they’re interested in.”
Back in the `80’s and `90’s, NBC pioneered the idea of “Must-See TV”, an entire even of programming of top-rated shows, mostly sit-coms, that would be water-cooler talk the next day. And the shows were good — it’s hard to argue with either the success or, usually, the quality of The Cosby Show, Cheers, Friends, and Seinfeld.
But those days are gone now, partly because there are so many more choices available, and partly because, well, the shows aren’t just that good anymore, which is why networks are having a hard time keeping people in tune with their schedule, and why NBC is making the Leno move:
On Tuesday, Ben Silverman, the co-chairman of NBC Entertainment, called “The Jay Leno Show” a “killer app,” not only because of the comedian’s talents, but because “you want to watch it that night, and you want to watch it the next night.”
Mr. Silverman predicted that the program would be “totally DVR-proof.”
That, of course, is an absurd suggestion. With the exception of some live events, especially sporting events, there really isn’t any show on television that can’t be enjoyed at some other time than when the network says you have to watch it.
Can’t stay up for SNL on a Saturday Night ? TiVo it — something which also let’s you fast-forward through the bad parts and get to the one or two sketches that will actually make a splash.
Once you have a DVR, there’s really no reason to watch anything at it’s regularly scheduled time, and no reason at all to subject yourself to the commercials that interrupt an otherwise good television show.
Of course, there’s another logic behind Leno’s 10pm show, as Leno himself noted:
Mr. Leno himself may have put his finger on a more fundamental factor. He told the MSNBC host Keith Olbermann: “People go to bed earlier now; 10:30 is like 11:30 used to be.” For baby boomers of Mr. Leno’s generation that is certainly true. We have trouble now making it through even the opening monologue of “Saturday Night Live,” a show that not so very long ago we watched with such enthusiasm that, still pumped when it was over, we might have hung around for a half-hour of “Showtime at the Apollo,” which used to follow.
Anyone of a certain age who has struggled lately to watch late-night TV knows that to succeed you have to get through the midnight dead zone, when there’s often a six-minute commercial break that feels like eternity. You yawn, you stretch, you weigh the channel clicker in your hand, you decide to “rest your eyes” just for a moment. And then, hours later, you wake yourself with a snort, wondering where on earth you are. It’s like coming back from the dead.
But we remember, fondly, what late-night television was like, and the whole point was that it wasn’t prime time. Getting past that 11:35 barrier was like slipping into a world that was cooler, hipper, more spontaneous. In the heyday of late night, the era of Jack Paar and Johnny Carson, people even smoked on TV and drank from coffee cups stuff that might not have been coffee. Late-night shows are actually as ritualized as opera: there’s the opening monologue, the visiting guest, the comic or musical performer, the host’s signature bits — David Letterman’s “Top 10 List,” Conan O’Brien’s “If They Mated,” Mr. Leno’s “Headlines” and “Jaywalking.” But somehow they feel looser and more unscripted than most television, and unpredictable things still happen. Guests are sometimes boring, but sometimes antic. There is always a chance Drew Barrymore will take her shirt off. And animal visitors, who still turn up on occasion, can be relied on to misbehave or urinate inappropriately.
And that, my friends, is what the DVR is for.
H/T: James Joyner
