Eugene David<br>...The One-Minute Pundit

Posted 6:15 PM by Gene

If it's Sunday it must be Big Double-A-Scribble Time:

1. Still more proof Toyota needn't worry about American customers because the brand's not American. Sorry, that's part of the mystique. Just as Americans could never build a good car again, so the Japanese can never build a bad one. But then, as we said before, look what's out on the road.

2. Corporate America's getting something new called "microsponsorships", financing good intentions, and this may have the same old drawbacks:

"You've got to look at yourself and what your brand stands for," said Ian Wolfman, CMO of brand-engagement agency IMC2. And whatever you decide to pursue can't be an isolated campaign. "It's got to tie into a bigger program that attracts people with similar values and those have got to be clearly stated."

Otherwise, said Marc de Swaan Arons, chairman, Effective Brands, "you might as well be throwing money away."

Just like financing junk television!

3. And in the civil war called late-night television, signs of its increasing irrelevance:

If you like broad humor, Mr. Leno may well be your guy. In his last season of "Tonight," he lured an average of 5.1 million viewers, according to Nielsen. Then there's the fascinating case study of Mr. Letterman, a celebrity who has nothing to prove and airs his dirty laundry in public while retaining fans and maintaining an underdog mentality, snatching an average of about 4.2 million viewers season-to-date as of Feb. 14. There's also Jimmy Fallon, the newbie, worth an average of about 1.4 million viewers; Jimmy Kimmel, the frat boy, good for an average of about 1.7 million; and Craig Ferguson, the distinguished monologist, with average viewership around 1.9 million.

But wait, there's more. On cable, Comedy Central satirists Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert nab an average of about 1.4 million and 1.1 million viewers, respectively. Cartoon Network's Adult Swim wins about 1.9 million. Chelsea Handler's female-focused vodka-shot humor nabs an average of 818,000 on Comcast's E!. And TBS rookie George Lopez has won an average following of about 1.2 million for "Lopez Tonight."

How does that all compare with the old days? Even in his last season, Mr. Carson was attracting an average of 6.7 million viewers.

And the irrelevance further increases:

Meantime, late-night has had to accommodate new viewing patterns. Not only do many hosts and assorted sidekicks do live commercials -- a nod to both the genre's earliest days and present economic pressures -- but they've had to nip and tuck their program segments to accommodate more ad time in the earlier part of their shows. Indeed, ABC and CBS have acknowledged that they moved certain ad breaks on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" and "The Late Show With David Letterman" forward so they would air before midnight -- the better to reach the larger portion of the shows' audiences and get better ratings for commercial breaks.

That's because of a late-night fact that hasn't changed: A significant part of the audience is still turning the TV off by midnight. If Johnny Carson couldn't beat the Sandman, the new late night isn't going to do it now.

Who knows? Someday even these hardy folks may tune out at 11:35 -- to avoid the commercials altogether.