Regular Late Night Viewers Shop Around but WGA Strike Creates No New Winners for Other Programs or Other Media.

The television programming most affected by the Writer’s Strike is the late night talk shows.  Many of these shows have been in reruns since the strike began on November 5th.  Did the regular late night viewers go on strike with the writers?  Did they switch to radio, go to the movies, or switch off the TV?

Using data from IMMI panel members in six cities, and comparing viewing patterns for the two weeks preceding the strike with the two weeks after,  we can see how regular late night viewers responded to the reruns.  For the study we classified any panel member who watched any of The Late Show with David Letterman, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,  The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson,  Late Night with Conan O’Brien,  Jimmy Kimmel Live!, The Daily Show,  and The Colbert Report at least four times during the two week period before the strike as a “regular” late night viewer.

• Before the strike these regular late night talk show viewers watched an average of 21.7 minutes of all late night television.  After the strike they watched a statistically nearly identical 20.8 minutes.

• The many regular late night talk show viewers who left the talk shows scattered to other programming: syndicated, movies, sports, etc.  So although the number of them viewing late night talk shows dropped,  the number viewing late night programming did not drop.

• The strike had almost no effect on radio listening for these regular late night viewers.  24% listened to late night radio before the strike, 23% after the strike.

• Not a single IMMI panel member classified as a regular late night viewer went out to a late movie (even one that started earlier in the evening), so any hoped for boost there is probably a bust. 

 

The frequency per person chart shows the regular late night viewers increased their program sampling after the strike, and the Leno and Letterman shows were sampled more after the strike.  This suggests that after the strike reruns began, the regular late night viewer looked around more than usual, probably looking for a rerun of a show they hadn’t seen before. 

Tracking the regular viewers who left their late night talk shows reveals they scattered to programming all over the schedule.  None of the shows picked up enough new viewers to be statistically significant.  The wandering regular late night viewers ended up at a broad range of show types and titles.