At first glance, this is a great way to get audiences to sample a show that got a lot of buzz last year, but was serialized in nature. Too many people got burned by ‘24′ and other shows that became impossible to follow. ABC used the same technique last year and this year, re-running new shows a few days later to provide “second chance” hooks.

Now - that’s the surface explanation.

What NBC might be gleaning from this experiment is just how many people WOULD time-shift a show if they had the technology. If you air the same episode twice in a week, there is a small percentage of households that would watch both, but for the most part not. Now, those of us with DVR and TiVO are already in the habit of watching when WE want. By showing Heroes twice, NBC gets to figure out how many more people would be interested in the program if it were outside of the single Monday night box. If the number for Saturday is very low, it means most of the interested fan base is nailing the initial viewing on the edge of their seats. If the Saturday ratings are significant and sustain over time, then there is a fairly decent case to be made that NBC ought to consider alternate distribution models. After all, if you don’t have a DVR, the only way you can time-shift a show is to download it.

Isn’t Joost out of beta now…?

Happy Friday.