The Demise of Advertising & Programmed Television, by David Foster Wallace

Chris Ayers via Poor Yorick Entertainment

This is an extended passage from Infinite Jest about the demise of advertising as we know it in the United States, which happens to be intertwined with the demise of all programmed television. 

Fair number of spoilers abound. 

In Re Fallon, Millennials, & the Future of Broadcast Television

From the NYT, on NBC's "Tonight Show" host change (emphasis & alterations mine):

NBC certainly believes . . . that Mr. Fallon will be up to the daunting challenge of keeping “Tonight” relevant in the face of altered viewing habits, an upheaval in audience demographics and diminishing late-night profits. . . . 

The motive for the chang[ing the host to Fallon] was not purely economic, because “Tonight” is not the profit generator it once was. The show can still make money on a tighter budget, and Mr. Fallon will, at least for a time, make considerably less than Mr. Leno’s reported annual salary of about $20 million. (NBC imposed staff and salary reductions on Mr. Leno in 2012.) 

For NBC, the move is more about maintaining a vital piece of its birthright than retrofitting an ATM machine. . . . [T]o remain an essential part of American culture, “Tonight” required a generational change at some point, adjusting the focus from baby boomers to their millennial kids. Mr. Leno’s audience, while still the largest in late night, had steadily aged. The median viewer was below 50 in 2005; when Mr. Leno left the air this month, it had climbed to 57.8.

Let's just mull that for a second: the median age of a Leno watcher is nearly 58.

A few more thoughts (with an accompanying soundtrack):

• Most millennials don't watch network television except for live sports.  Big Bang Theory?  Two Broke Girls? How I Met Your Mother? Come the fuck on. 
• Those millennials that do watch network programming typically do so after recording it (thereby FF'ing through the commercials), or they simply watch it online. 
• Few millennials watch late night television talk shows at all, and I'd wager that most don't really even understand the concept of the show's format. Frankly, it's just bizarre.
• It start with some lame, pun-heavy standup comedy that mostly riffs off current events that millennials: (1) don't know about; (2) don't care about; or (3) are already outdated since they read a news story online that was updated after the show was recorded in mid-afternoon.
• And then they interview some celebrities, which is just a thinly-veiled marketing scheme to make you go see some new movie? (A movie, BTW, that's funded & produced by the same media conglomerate that produces the late night TV talk show.) 
• If millennials want celebrity news, they'll read Hollywood news sites. 
• In this day & age, we don't want to be at the whims of a network executive and a publicist who decide who's gonna show up tonight.  
• If I care about the celebrity interview, I'll watch it online later. 
• The most successful, engaging, and amusing parts of the show are the skits.  And those are always available on YouTube. 
• The only viable model for any programming analogous to traditional late night network TV talk shows is the Daily Show.  And the competition isn't close. 
• And even the Daily Show gets a significant amount of eyeballs via online videos—not live. 
• What sets the Daily Show apart?
• The jokes & satire are actually funny, and the writers do an extremely good job of finding & generating ridiculous bits that you can't get anywhere else (e.g., mashing up all the CNN or Fox News fuck ups — that shit never gets old). 
• It's the preeminent show in this sphere precisely because it provides content you can't get anywhere else.  In the age of the Internet, that's the only way you're guaranteed to attract eyeballs.  
• In short, broadcast late night TV is trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.  
• They are still adhering to the same model that Carson used in 1953.  
• Sorry guys, but the world has changed a bit in the ensuing SIXTY YEARS.  Someone forward them a link to the Wikipedia page for Moore's Law. 
• Back when Carson was the only way to hear jokes about current events and watch celebrity interviews?  Yeah — people tuned in.  But given the number of other avenues to get the content that network late night TV provides, the model isn't viable anymore.  
• Mark my words: Fallon will do better than Leno with Millennials (if only because Leno is fucking terrible), but Fallon will only truly succeed by mimicking the Daily Show.  
• Long-term:  The networks are fucked. 
• The NFL is the only thing keeping them breathing in 2014. With the NFL facing its own existential crisis, that gravy train is by no means assured in perpetuity. 
• Don't get me wrong: it's going to be a long, slow death—but the networks will cease to exist in their current form by the time I'm dead.  
• Sooner or later they'll all be bought out, with the leading candidate being the cable providers—i.e., the vulture circling its impending feast, counting its last gasps for air—who will vertically integrate content production and delivery. 
• From the perspective of the providers, why not let the networks hemorrhage cash for a few decades and scoop them up at a bargain basement price?
• The true loser in all of this will be the consumer, who will have no choice but to pay the exorbitant prices monopolies (by definition) can extract.  
• Our best hope is that cable providers fail to evolve too, and consumers will finally revolt to the point where we obtain the opportunity to choose what they want—instead of paying for a package that's at least 95% garbage. 
• I would pay what I pay now (approx. $100 per month for cable television and Internet) to have faster Internet, HBO Go, live sports, and Netflix.  
• I could give a rat's ass about everything else the providers try ram down my throat—and I'm confident most people my age feel the same way.