Jay Leno

Jay Leno’s lies, Jay Leno’s damn lies, and statistics

Posted on 16 December 2008 by Robert Seidman

Jay Leno says people are going to bed earlier these days. Jay Leno says 10pm is the new 11:30.

Jay Leno is full of crap.

I’m not really irked by it. Complete crap taken as fact by mainstream media? Oh please, I’m way too beaten down by years of that to get worked up about it, but since one of our readers beat me over the head with some data, I figured I might as well debunk Mr. Leno.

I seriously doubt Jay Leno intended to be deceitful even if it was good PR for being on at 10pm. I’m sure Mr. Leno believes what he said is true. But it isn’t. Leno is wrong when he says that people are going to bed earlier and that 10pm is the new 11:30pm, at least according to the Nielsen data.

Of course it is absolutely true that more people are watching TV at 10pm than 11:30pm. But that’s not anything new. People actually do go to sleep. But are they going to sleep earlier?

The Nielsen data when it comes to television viewing doesn’t indicate that people are going to bed earlier. In fact, it indicates that people are generally going to bed at the same time they always did, and if anything are staying up a little bit later now!

What it does show is a decreasing trend of viewership between 10pm-11pm (not great news for Leno’s new timeslot), and increasing viewership between 11:30pm-12:30am. That holds true both as a one year trend and a five year trend.

According to Nielsen data, 6% fewer 18-49 year olds are watching TV between 10pm-11pm than were watching 5 years ago. 4% fewer 18-34 year olds are watching between 10pm-11pm than five years ago. If you want a broader view, looking at 25-54 year olds, viewing between 10pm-11pm is down 7% over the last five years.

Meanwhile, the trend is UP for viewing between 11:30pm-12:30am over the last five years among 18-49 year olds (1% increase) and 18-34 year olds (5% increase) and is completely flat among the broader 25-54 demographic.

The actual data simply does not back Mr. Leno up.

All data above is based on LIVE viewing only, but since the discussion was about whether people were going to bed earlier, bringing DVR viewing habits into the mix didn’t make much sense.