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Conan Ob Brien was recently promoted on NBC from b Late Nightb at 12:37am to b The Tonight Showb at 11:35pm, taking over for Jay Leno and leaving a b Late Nightb void that has been filled by Jimmy Fallon.B This programming switch gives us a unique opportunity to investigate program loyalty vs. daypart loyalty in our quest to better understand viewing habits.
b Tonight Showb always outdraws b Late Night,b but has done so by an even greater margin than normal following Conanb s move from 12:30am to 11:30pm.B We witness a b Conan Effectb in which Conan fans watched an additional 0.5 episodes of b Tonight Showb per episode of b Late Nightb following the programming change.
The concept of loyalty clearly plays a role in viewing habits.B Genre, program, daypart, and network loyalties, among others, all affect how viewers choose their programs.B The Conan case allows us to isolate program and daypart loyalty and investigate which one plays a more important role in viewing habits.
We first located people who had watched b Late Night with Conan Ob Brienb in January 2009 (the last full month of the program) and then segmented these viewers based on frequency of viewing the program.B We then looked at the viewing habits of these specific segments across three different programs: b The Tonight Show with Jay Lenob in January 2009, b The Tonight Show with Conan Ob Brienb in June 2009 (the first month of the show), and b Late Night with Jimmy Fallonb in June 2009.
NBCb s b Tonight Showb consistently outdraws b Late Night,b since b Tonight Showb is at a more desirable hour and generally has a more popular host.B The y-axis of the graph shows b Tonight Showb tune-ins per b Late Nightb tune-in.B All values are greater than 1, since nearly any segment of viewers will watch more than one episode of the 11:30pm show for each episode watched of the 12:30am show.
The graph further demonstrates, however, that the preference for b Tonight Showb over b Late Nightb became even more extreme following the programming change.B The green b Conan Effectb area shows that following Conanb s move to 11:30pm, the different segments watched an additional 0.5 episodes of b Tonight Showb for each episode of b Late Night.b B This area is delineated by two lines: the blue line, which shows that the different segments watched between 1.75 times and 1.1 times more Leno than Conan in January, and the red line, which shows that these same audiences watched between 2.25 times and 1.25 times more Conan than Fallon in June.
The red line is consistently higher than the blue line (except for one specific loyalty group with a small sample size), indicating that the preference for b Tonight Showb over b Late Nightb became more extreme in June compared to January. This difference is statistically significant, as the 95% confidence interval for the difference between the two lines does not contain zero (which would indicate no difference).
For the NBC Late Fringe audience, program loyalty seems to matter more than daypart loyalty.B A preference for Conan (or perhaps a dislike of Jimmy Fallon) caused viewers to shift their television consumption across time toward the program that they liked the most.B In June, they watched an additional half-episode of b Tonight Showb for each episode of b Late Night,b compared to their viewing pattern in January.
Our goal is to drive viewership through data-driven promotions, and we feel that a better understanding of our viewers will improve our targeting and response rates.B The Conan case is just one example, but further study could validate the program vs. daypart conclusion and suggest new directions of study.B Perhaps we can reach an audience more efficiently and cost-effectively by placing spots on popular shows during off-peak hours, rather than on primetime shows for which the audience hasnb t shown much interest.B We could also try to separate program loyalists from daypart loyalists, which would help guide the appropriate promos to show to each group.B Viewers are pulled by various forces when choosing a program, and clearly a preference for certain programs plays a strong role, perhaps even stronger than the showb s time of day.