Hey, what’s up? Oh, disastrous ratings.
The Conan/Leno drama has been done to death at this point, so I have no desire here to rehash how Conan got “screwed”, the late night hosts taking shots at each other, the gigantic severance or even the employment status of the Masturbating Bear.
Amidst all the media coverage of the personalities involved, there’s an underlying critical trend that networks should start taking note of right now before they fall behind the curve of media evolution.
At the end of the decade, we saw the explosion of social media and mobile. This changes the paradigm greatly, allowing the viewer to become an active participant in their entertainment, instead of a passive consumer.
We’ve also seen a massive oversaturation of available media and technology. I’m a 27 year old male, and my entertainment options when I come home include live television, specialized channels for every imaginable interest, DVR’ed shows, OnDemand shows, Netflix, Netflix streaming on my Xbox, Xbox itself, console games, downloadable games, music games, a sports package that lets me watch every game in any league, social media, social media games, online games, online poker, sports betting, and of course my personalized news filter. On traditional mediums and my iPhone. And the really cool, remarkable stuff I need to see? It comes to me on a day-to-day basis; I don’t even need to put in the effort to seek it out.
So look: excuse me if you don’t have my full attention when you’re doing your Top 10 bit, your craaazy real headlines, or even “In the Year 3000”.
The amount of media and entertainment I have access to at this very moment is staggering. It’s unprecedented, and traditional media outlets like NBC are rushing to play catch up.
