• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, April 2, 2015

You believe you have a good show that people want to watch.  So, why run it during the time most people are asleep?

NBC says it’s started extra airings of its evening newscasts -- not so coincidentally, at around the same time Brian Williams was suspended  -- on ten affiliate stations between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m.

The network said in a statement: "We believed there would be an appetite for 'NBC Nightly News' in addition to its regular time slot, and that has proven to be true: The viewer response has been overwhelmingly positive." 

Estimates are there could be anywhere from 40,000 to 50,000 added viewers -- this out of total of 8.2 million viewers the NBC news show regular gets.

But still... 2 a.m?  Yeah, that’s the time I’d pick. Because you know that viewers are just dying to get more network TV news at that hour -- especially those that don’t have any DVR technology. So they need to wait up, or else... what?

National advertisers have been pissed that their advertising is running in the wee hours of the mornings. They don’t like the environment? They don’t like the smallest-ever rating bump (0.6%) for an extra airing of a TV news show?  Whatever. Marketers’ complaints have forced NBC to replaced national ads with local TV advertising.

And what does this mean for local TV advertisers? Guess their standards aren’t as high.

Mind you, what’s a TV advertiser to do? Look for extra gross rating points on those digital video sites where perhaps a robot might decide where your TV commercial should run on some really fringe Web area?

If NBC was really interested in getting a bigger audience, it would tell its 200 or so affiliates it wants to run its national newscast in some daytime hours -- or perhaps in one of those lame half-hour time slots at MSNBC, which has resulted in current lackluster ratings at the channel.

Wonder how all parties feel about this now.