Nary a week goes by where Lani, out of nowhere, will suddenly lament:

“Why did NBC have to cancel Studio 60?”

No tearing of hair, no sackcloth ‘n ashes, but the mourning is palpable, months later.

And a few months ago, I referenced Jeff Immelt (CEO of NBC’s parent company, GE) claiming “Content is king.” Apparently, Studio 60 wasn’t great content. Don’t tell that to Lani, though, for whom Studio 60 was some of the best content on television in her generational memory.

But that begs the question - what IS great content? Who assigns that badge of honor?

Well, I’m listening to the highly-dynamic Neil Gorman (easily the most engaging speaker I’ve seen here so far), and among other things, he flagged something amazing - and amazingly obvious, once you think about it.

According to him, Studio 60 had the highest percentage of viewers with 4-year college degrees, and highest percentage of viewers with incomes over $75K (or $100K - he’s a fast presenter). It’s an advertiser’s dream!

Unfortunately, it was also the show that had the highest percentage of time-shifting - people who were using TiVo or downloading episodes online, thus avoiding most (if not all) of the advertisers’ attempts to sell stuff to the viewers.

And guess what? Studio 60 got canceled after one critically acclaimed season.

It could be a mini-conspiracy theory: Advertisers killed Studio 60! I think I owe Lani an apology. While it’s wonderful to hear the “Content is king” comment, it doesn’t seem to have been the forward-thinking observation I first thought it was. It’s clear that to Immelt and NBC, content is king…only if it delivers eyeballs to advertisers.

A little cautionary tale for everyone looking to integrate advertising with their content.

Is it lunch time yet?

Posted in All About Content |

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 28th, 2007 at 11:41 am and is filed under All About Content. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.