Late Night Wars part two, again.
You know…
… Network Television beats Cable television in the ratings.
This is relevant information, because cable “revolutionized” television, oh, three decades ago. And today, we have this interesting little item explaining the problem with Jay Leno. There is this post-fact rationalizing that took place, to Time Magazine. “The most watched television programming at 10 is TIVO!”
Of course, it is news when cable television beats network television, as happened when F/X beat… whatever the heck NBC is airing at 10.
The basic problems look like this. When Conan O’brien took over The Tonight Show, the average age of the audience fell by ten years. Maureen Dowd’s thesis of breaking up the standard television habits works all right and well, I suppose, except even that Time Magazine found it hard and “ironic” to say Jay Leno was “The Future of Television”.
If you’re like me, your viewing habits of Conan O’brien and David Letterman consist of a couple of days a week, skimming through their program on the Internet. And if you’re like me, you actively watch no Leno. At the end of the decade, and the end of the next decade, the viewing habits described by Dowd will be completely Kaput. Don’t ask me the monetizing a network will figure out.  Given the demographics, it is just absurd to think that Jay Leno would be a hinge on that television revolution, as he apparently proved to be in the Cable TV revolution of Cable Programming beating Network Programming. This is also the problem with the “I’m with Coco” campaign — quick question to anyone throwing up their Conan O’brien image on their websites: do you watch that program on your teevee set? (Likewise) in the meantime, it looks like NBC is playing “Hardball”, and the method of getting Conan back to television after the end of next week — and from the television network content provider onto my computer screen — will be a long and tourturous one.
And, Letterman shows, it is fashionable to knock on Jay Leno.