NBC suits, whose network might just land in third place for the November ratings race among the 18- to 49-year-olds it targets, said yesterday that this has been a good if not great November for NBC.
Last year, it handily won the November sweep in the demographic group that advertisers hand over their wallets to reach. ABC, the network that this year could beat NBC in the demo during the ratings sweep and will at worst tie NBC for second place, had finished a distant third last November. CBS has an unstoppable lead for the November derby in the age bracket, among viewers of all ages, and pretty much any way you want to look at it.
Last night was the final night of the November ratings derby, and heading into it ABC held the slimmest of leads over NBC.
For the final night, NBC's prime-time lineup started with "The Apprentice" clip job, which was not expected to do any business, followed by the struggling "The West Wing" and "Law & Order." ABC kicked things off with the new hit "Lost," followed by a "Nick & Jessica's Family Christmas" special and an episode of "Wife Swap" in which the husbands swap families.
In other words: The race for second place in the November sweep among the coveted 18-49ers, who are the currency of the broadcast TV business, hinges on Jessica Simpson.
NBC wisely decided to do its spinning before that final night, holding its phone news conference yesterday to crow about its possible second-place finish. NBC sweep phone calls are always the most fun to attend. Its executives can spin like nobody's business.
At the outset of every sweep phoner, for instance, one NBC exec begins with a money quote -- one the press is sure to jump on -- about the state of the industry, in which a list of buzzworthy broadcasts is rattled off. The list always begins with an NBC show that doesn't really belong at the top but ends up there in the quote when it's published anyway, so the show winds up looking better for it. For example, when reality series were huge, you'd hear an NBC executive during one of these phone calls using "Fear Factor" in the same sentence as "American Idol" and "Survivor," and "Fear Factor" was always mentioned first.
Yesterday, NBC Entertainment President Kevin Reilly kicked off the phoner by telling reporters, "It's an exciting time for the business; people are talking about network television once again, be it 'The Apprentice,' 'Desperate Housewives,' the Ray Liotta episode of 'ER,' the 'CSI' franchise or 'Biggest Loser.' Broadcast television has buzz right now and that's good for all the networks."
The Ray Liotta episode of "ER" had buzz?
Notice how "The Apprentice" leads the list, even though it's ABC's "Desperate Housewives" that is practically choking on all its buzz, and boasts being the No. 1 broadcast of the season among those coveted 18- to 49-year-olds, which is the No. 1 new series of the season and which, according to many critics, heralds the return of the scripted series.
Notice also how that one episode of "ER" -- an episode that scored fewer than 20 million viewers and got beat by CBS's "Without a Trace" -- is included but not the 100th episode of "CSI," the most watched telecast of this entire season, clocking a series-best 31.5 million viewers.
Notice how three series on this list are from NBC, which has fallen from first to, possibly, third place this November, but only one from ABC, which is the major comeback story of the November sweep owing not only to "Desperate Housewives" but also to other high-buzz series such as "Lost" and "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," which are nowhere to be found on Reilly's November Buzz List.
Nor is "Wife Swap," ABC's new reality series, even though it's doing better in the ratings this season than NBC's "The Biggest Loser," which Reilly did include.
The NBC State of the Industry Buzz List is a brilliant bit of tactical maneuvering and a testament to the ingenuity of the deep-think thinkers of NBC. It is always fun to see how many of The Reporters Who Cover Television run with it the next day.
