NBC's Intriguing Jimmy Fallon Experiment

Maybe you recall reading back in December that NBC was going to break new territory in its efforts to launch “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon”, the show that replaces Conan O’Brien as he moves to Jay Leno’s slot. The plan? To run a daily video blog (or vlog for you social media elites), which serves up small, so-called “snacks” of the kind of content that will air on the show, with ample opportunities for potential viewers to weigh in on what they’re seeing.

Of more interest than the actual announcement is how the experiment, which began in December, is performing in the media marketplace, and using the telling, but not scientific metrics of video views and comments to the show’s site, there’s a high level of engagement, if not a particularly high level of views. A video about the show’s logo contest drew 115 comments; on what chair he should use on the set, 56 comments; on his laser eye surgery, 42. Meanwhile, the traffic per video seems to fall generally into the 15,000 to 20,000 range — respectable, but not necessarily the foreshadowing of a huge hit. It indicates that those who care about Jimmy Fallon care a lot, while the rest of us aren’t paying attention.

The videos are also available on NBC’s part-owned video site Hulu; on YouTube, the ones I found are bootlegs not posted by NBC. That’s curious, as in the promotional stages, it’s all about reach, and YouTube’s traffic far outpaces Hulu’s.

There’s also an accompanying effort to insert Fallon into the online media milieu extends far into the social realm. On Twitter, Fallon has more than 25,000 followers. (Contrast Fallon with Robert Scoble, who has more than twice that many.) On Facebook, about 3,200. Not great.

Perhaps detailing these metrics seems like a frivolous exercise, but I’m sure NBC is watching every keystroke, every mouse click and every friend request. While this promo effort seems to be about only one show, it’s really the blueprint for how new shows will be rolled out going forward. Not that the ubiquitous network promos won’t continue– they will, but will air to an ever-shrinking TV audience. However, giving network shows and stars a vast social media footprint is going to rise sharply in importance over the next few years, helping to not only build audience, but shape content. It’s about much more than a logo contest. Keep watching.