As the writers' strike drags on, late-night talk shows in reruns are showing surprising ratings resilience as a dearth of new content does not seem to hurting late-night TV viewing patterns -- at
least according to a study by Integrated Media Measurement. Pre-strike, regular late-night talk-show viewers saw an average of 21.7 minutes of late-night tube; the average so far during the strike
period was "statistically identical" at 20.8 minutes.
But viewing-frequency-per-person data also shows that after the strike began, watchers upped program sampling, with Leno and
Letterman sampled more, an indication of viewers on the hunt for reruns they hadn't seen before. "Despite the sudden halt of new talk shows caused by the writers' strike, there was virtually no change
in consumer behavior in that people still watched television," says Amanda Welsh, head of research for IMM.
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