LAWRENCE, Kan. – Audience metrics are a funny thing. Enormous value is given to what are simply estimates. In “traditional media” like radio and television, they have always been admittedly flawed in one form or another. After all, in the days before cable, how could anyone possibly know how many people are actually watching a television show? The same has always been true of radio. It’s impossible to measure with absolute certainty an audience receiving an over-the-air signal.

Filed under:
Technology, Television by Scott A. Winer

LAWRENCE, Kan. – The Winter Olympics can’t come soon enough for NBC. Until then, there’s little the network can do to stop their talk show hosts from taking nightly jabs at their apparent late night ineptitude. Meanwhile, Conan O’Brien has finally broken his off-air silence, rejecting the proposed move to 12:05 a.m. ET in a statement released today:

Filed under:
Late Night TV, Opinion/Editorial, Television by Scott A. Winer

LAWRENCE, Kan. – Who knew it would take over 15 years for the chinks in NBC’s late night armor to show? Indeed, what goes around seems to be coming around for the network that once branded itself “America’s Late Night Leader.”

It’s becoming clear that the decisions NBC made in 1991 set the stage for the giant mess currently waiting at its doorstep.

Filed under:
Late Night TV, Opinion/Editorial, Television by Scott A. Winer

LAWRENCE, Kan. – Rumors began swirling today about the future of NBC late night. With an end to the 10 p.m. (9 p.m. CT) Jay Leno Show imminent, many people are wondering what will happen to new Tonight Show host Conan O’Brien.

It has been said many times over that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Such is true of NBC.

The network that passed over David Letterman as Johnny Carson’s successor for The Tonight Show in the early 1990s seems to have made a similar gaffe with Leno and O’Brien. Like former NBC Entertainment executive Warren Littlefield – made infamous by Bill Carter’s book The Late Shift and a subsequent HBO movie of the same name, current entertainment chief Jeff Gaspin offered the 11:30 time slot to a seemingly hot commodity, O’Brien, in order to prevent losing him to a rival network.

Filed under:
Late Night TV, Opinion/Editorial, Television by Scott A. Winer

LAWRENCE, Kan. – This evening Jay Leno finishes his 17-year tenure at The Tonight Show, and it’s hard not to think of the events that have transpired since or those leading up to him getting the job. Either way, I certainly won’t be losing sleep over what to do now that Conan O’Brien is taking over. It’s simple: I’ll watch David Letterman.

Sure, I’ve been a fan of the Late Show since I was in 5th grade. For a while I loved the show for reasons I couldn’t even articulate at the time. But there was definitely something. After attending a taping in 2007, I finally figured it out. Letterman and his staff are simply smarter than the folks on the other coast.

Filed under:
Late Night TV, Television by Scott A. Winer