‘Jay Leno Show’ Less Time-Shifted than Other 10pm Shows

The Jay Leno Show during prime time on NBC is proving to have a strength appealing to advertisers: more people are watching the show live rather than recording it to watch later, according to TiVo.

But while the show is reducing the amount of time-shifted viewing in the 10pm hour, nearly 50% of viewing is still time-shifted, TiVo vp of audience research & measurement Todd Juenger says (via the Los Angeles Times). That compares with 70% of viewers who recorded NBC shows in the 10pm hour last year.

The show is also being time-shifted less than 10pm shows on other networks.

20% of the people who record the Jay Leno Show is viewing it within an hour of its original airing, up from 13% last season, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

TiVo says this means time-shifting of Leno’s show is cutting into the audience for NBC local news at 11pm and Conan O’Brien at 11:30. But it is, of course, impossible to say what show those time-shifted viewers would have been watching if they weren’t time-shifting Leno. They could have switched to another network, or not watched television at all at the later hour.

NBC affiliate stations had worried that if Jay Leno was not successful in prime time five days, the show would be an ineffective lead-in to local news at the 11pm hour. One station, Boston affiliate WHDH TV Channel 7, went so far as to originally refused to run the Jay Leno Show, opting instead to air local news. The affiliate eventually capitulated to the network.