The NBC Nightly News seems to be serious about expanding its audience base beyond retirees, recently airing an ad in which Brian Williams tells people to record his show if they can’t watch it live. The idea is that young people use DVR, or, maybe, that old people want to have their cake and watch Diane Sawyer, too.
“A growing number of viewers tell me they time-shift the news,” Williams wrote in an e-mail to the Times. “Loyal viewers used to say ‘we watch you every night.’ These days, an increasing number make a point of saying ‘We RECORD you every night.’”
By explicitly promoting the use of DVR, NBC is sending another signal to advertisers that regular Nielsen ratings don’t capture the real size of an audience.
NBC Ad Urges Recording News [Media Decoder/NYT]
