Re: "From NEW YORK, It's the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon"
Libs wrote:
I love Jimmy Fallon's show. I kinda wished NBC just stuck with how it was. I feel like this decision is gonna bite them in the butt somehow. As with most of their decisions.
All I know is they better keep The Roots on the new show.
I think the only way it's going to hurt NBC is in total viewers. Leno always dominates the total viewer numbers. This past week the total viewers looked like this...
Leno - 3.5 million (He averaged 5.1 million in 2008-2009)
Letterman - 3.0 million
Kimmel - 2.6
The problem though is in the 18-49 demo (which is the demo that apparently spends the most money) and it looks like this...
Leno - 0.8 (Conan averaged a 1.0 in 2009 with 2.5 million total viewers / Jay averaged a 1.4 in 2008-2009)
Letterman - 0.7
Kimmel - 0.7
A 1.0 rating equals 1.27 million viewers. That means...
Leno - 1.01 million viewers 18-49 vs. 1.77 million viewers in 2008-2009
Letterman - 889,000 viewers
Kimmel - 889,000 viewers
His show costs the most to produce, and before he recently took a 50% pay cut to save some of his staff (he's not the devil), he was the highest paid. "Tonight" was and still is starting to lose money which is the first time it's ever happened in the show's history (except maybe briefly during Conan's run).
With Fallon, the hope is that he will deliver similar or better numbers in the demo ("better" isn't likely because all of the late night shows will keep declining, but "similar" is likely), while being a much cheaper show to produce. Fallon will also be paid much, much less than Leno.
The only place where NBC will take a hit is with the total viewers number. He'll probably pull in similar numbers to Kimmel (now)/Conan (2009). His show will make money though. Also, like in 2009, Letterman will probably see an uptick in viewers from where he is now and he'll become number one. That won't be a prolonged worry for NBC though because most people think that once Letterman's contract expires next year he'll retire (maybe even right after Leno goes off). And then it becomes a three-way race again for first.
