My 2 cents on the Late Night clustercuss

My 2 cents on the Late Night clustercuss

I haven't really gotten too much into CoCoGate on here, mainly because the internet already has plenty of commentary on it. I think that it was a dick move, and that if ratings were the issue, NBC should have shit-canned both shows instead of turning it into a giant pop culture pissing contest. But mostly I think it just shows what a colossal waste the Nielsen ratings really are. (this is what I did my senior graduation paper so nerdom ahoy!)

The Nielsen ratings really worked well when entire households sat down and watched the same thing on their one television on one of 13 UHF channels. When households had more than one set watched by more than one person and a little thing called cable in the 70s, it started making the numbers less reliable. When people don't even watch television at its regular time, cable has made the FCC basically obsolete, and most people in the Cream-Yer-Pants demographic watch most television through legal, illegal, and quasi-legal means through their computers... Well, you see where I'm going. When I did my paper way back in the Year Of Our Lord 2007, DVR recordings weren't even counted. So I'm surprised the Neilsen company adopted it so fast.... a decade after the technology came out. (and they only count it if the playback was within three days of the recording! Yikes! There's stuff on my DVR from September!)

*jumps off the high horse* So, Conan. Eh, I watched about every ep of the Tonight show, even though it was usually at dinner the next day. I guess I have the right to be mad (the "you can't bitch if you don't vote" argument), but in the end, I can't cover the streets in blood over pop culture. I think most of these grandiose Internets plans to boycott NBC are pretty naive. Here's your list of things to boycott - hope you kids won't miss Battlestar Galactica. Or, um, electricity. And for all you putting such high hopes of Fox, remember that it likes to kill good shows in their first season.

Mostly, though, I'm just kind of... proud? As my husband and I sat around for our 2nd annual "Conan leaves a show" night, I just couldn't imagine having my dream job yanked out from under me. But in a way, it's a little comforting. Somehow it made me feel a little less bad about being "not laid off per say from my first real job last year. And his speech toward the end, urging all the internet youngins to not be cynical, kind of made my heart swell.

So I'm eagerly awaiting his next show. And I guess NBC either needs to get its ass in gear or hope every advertising firm in America likes Chuck.