From Hollywood recently came word that Tonight Show host Jay Leno was forced to lay off 20 or so crew members and take a pay cut in the latest downsizing of NBC from the premiere broadcast network in the universe to a stop on your browser.
The shrinking of NBC and late night is filled with implications for marketers, because NBC used to be one of the three great marketing highways. Television now lives in a world where everything has changed and yet very little has changed.
Leno’s show still beats the competition handily. He’s still the King of Late Night. And neither he or his act has changed in 20 years. It’s just that the arena he’s operating in is smaller, because there’s more out there inside and outside of the television culture.
Perhaps these shows were never as popular as marketers thought they were. As consumers were offered a choice, they took it if only for the novelty. And the entire genre of televised talk shows hasn’t changed in decades. If you’ve ever sat on the sofa clutching an iPad while watching TV, you know there is not even screen exclusivity anymore.
Recently, there was an item in the L.A. Times announcing that Jimmy Kimmel was going to be aired against Leno and Letterman at 11:30 p.m. eastern. In the comments section, there was a lively debate going among a dozen or so posters about KImmel, Leno and others. But it was only a dozen. In the online newspaper in the entertainment capital of the world.
Another factor in the Leno flap with marketing echoes is the change in NBC’s ownership from General Electric to Comcast, a cable and Internet service provider. Comcast’s culture is in laying wire and upgrading infrastructures, not programming. Comcast may not understand why the Leno show requires 200 employees, when there are only a handful on the screen at any one time.
Marketers now have to decide how much attention NBC and Leno command. If you were a brewer of a new, mass-produced specialty beer, would you invest the pot in Jay and hope large numbers of consumers were half paying attention, or would you rather visit pubs in college towns and promote specifically to this admittedly small segment of the beer drinking population?
Businesses are always looking to build their audience without alienating their core group. “Bruno’s Subs,” known for its meaty sandwiches, has decided to launch a veggie version. This move doesn’t hurt anyone, and makes Bruno’s more attractive to vegetarians.
In a way, Bruno has room to grow in ways that Leno doesn’t. There’s not much Jay or anyone else can do about the talk show format, and if they can, they haven’t shown much willingness to change. After a while, the format becomes predictable and consumers decide they can watch the monologue and skip the celebrity on the sofa stuff or stuff the Tonight Show into their DVR and blow through it in a brisk five minutes.
