Jay Leno to 10 PM Weeknights on NBC?

[imhomerjay]

Will CBS & ABC be far behind at doing a nightly show at 9pmCT? I think it would be cool if CBS counter programmed Jay by moving "The Price is Right" to 9PM.

That has to be a joke, right?

 

[briancraig]

"NBC is not going to change the time of the local news for their affiliates. This is the lead-in they have been looking for."

Maybe not, Jay Leno averages 4.8 million viewers on The Tonight Show.

The CBS crime shows at 10 pm average between 10 and 14 million viewers.

Obviously, Jay Leno will have bigger numbers at 10 than he does at 11:30, but can he really bring in 6 or 7 million more. I doubt it.

If I was a NBC affiliate, I'm not sure I'd be happy with this move.

 

[rch66]

It sounds like a foregone conclusion: Leno at 10,
local news at 11, Conan O'Brien at 11:35, Jimmy
Fallon at 12:35. But I wonder why none of the
Big Three has followed the lead of Fox and the CW
and given 10 PM back to the affiliates? As someone
pointed out, some Fox stations' 10 PM newscasts have
monster ratings (Birmingham comes immediately to mind).

Because a Big Three could lose money when they give back hours to the affiliates. Fox is different in that they own a great majority of affiliates with respective HH reach (so affiliate gain offsets network loss). Also, Fox never had a 10pm network hour.

 

[4UH8SIMBKAGN]

"NBC is not going to change the time of the local news for their affiliates. This is the lead-in they have been looking for."

Maybe not, Jay Leno averages 4.8 million viewers on The Tonight Show.

The CBS crime shows at 10 pm average between 10 and 14 million viewers.

Obviously, Jay Leno will have bigger numbers at 10 than he does at 11:30, but can he really bring in 6 or 7 million more. I doubt it.

If I was a NBC affiliate, I'm not sure I'd be happy with this move.

I would be. He brings in younger demos than network primetime programming. The costs of the show will be next to nothing compared to the shows we produce here in Hollywood. There will be more room for avails. It's a win-win situtation for NBC affiliates and the network.

 

[briancraig]

The median age of Jay Leno’s current audience is 54, the oldest of all the late night talk shows.

The median age of current NBC prime time shows are:

Scrubs 34
The Office 35
Heroes 37
30 Rock 40
My Name is Earl 42
Chuck 42
The Biggest Loser 43
NBC Sunday Night Football 45
E.R. 46
Lipstick Jungle 46
Life 48
Friday Night Lights 49
Law & Order: SVU 49

 

[LKellerIII]

The median age of Jay Leno’s current audience is 54, the oldest of all the late night talk shows.

Nevertheless - a brilliant move. Worst case scenario: Jay is not a hit at 10:00, and he gets cancelled, which would make him look like damaged goods to the other networks. Meanwhile, NBC saves a lot of money over developing pilots and paying for 1 hour prime time dramas, and keeps Leno in the fold for now. Plus - he's an insurance policy for the Tonight Show - if Conan's ratings are significantly lower, they could then slide Jay back into the 11:35 slot.

Zucker would come out of that with egg on his face, but less so than if Leno went to ABC or FOX and shot to #1 in the late night ratings against Conan, while NBC's new 10:00 shows bombed in the ratings.

 

[djj]

This sounds like a win-win. NBC has one less hour of prime-time to gamble with (everything they have done lately has failed)...and they keep Jay.

I wonder if they might consider making 10-10:30 PM local news time (some Fox affiliates have monster ratings), with Jay at 10:30-11:30 PM. I belive the FCC considers prime time until 11:30, so if that is the case NBC would not lose their full-service status.

Has any of the big three (ABC, CBS, or NBC) done this before (program the same show five nights a week in a single set aside timeslot 8-11PM ET/PT)?

To answer that last question, I believe Dick Cavett was on multiple nights
on ABC prime-time (briefly, 10-11 pm) in 1969, before they banished him
to late-nights. Seems that he was on three- or four-nights a week...yes,
a very strange scheduling, but then again, ABC was still known by some
wags as the Almost Broadcasting Company... ;D

NBC says that Leno's show is relatively inexpensive to produce, but
to me, this move to prime-time simply shows a cheapening of the network...

Sad. I really haven't watched much prime-time network TV for years, and
I'm in my mid-40s. Formulaic CSI-type shows, reality shows that get more
and more bizarre (I wanna escape reality when I watch TV), and most
shows having only about 20 new episodes a season have turned me off...

I would think this is a chance for Letterman to get top ratings again, even
if by default (it's been 12 years since he slipped to second place)...

Brandon Tartikoff, the immensely successful NBC Programming Guru in the
1980s, must be spinning in his grave...

Thoughts?
--jay

 

[LKellerIII]

This sounds like a win-win. NBC has one less hour of prime-time to gamble with (everything they have done lately has failed)...and they keep Jay.

I

To answer that last question, I believe Dick Cavett was on multiple nights
on ABC prime-time (briefly, 10-11 pm) in 1969, before they banished him
to late-nights. Seems that he was on three- or four-nights a week...yes,
a very strange scheduling, but then again, ABC was still known by some
wags as the Almost Broadcasting Company... ;D

NBC says that Leno's show is relatively inexpensive to produce, but
to me, this move to prime-time simply shows a cheapening of the network...

Sad. I really haven't watched much prime-time network TV for years, and
I'm in my mid-40s. Formulaic CSI-type shows, reality shows that get more
and more bizarre (I wanna escape reality when I watch TV), and most
shows having only about 20 new episodes a season have turned me off...

I would think this is a chance for Letterman to get top ratings again, even
if by default (it's been 12 years since he slipped to second place)...

Brandon Tartikoff, the immensely successful NBC Programming Guru in the
1980s, must be spinning in his grave...

Thoughts?
--jay

Jay - I agree when you say that this kind of thing "cheapens the network," but you also say that you rarely watch network TV anymore. That's precisely the problem - many less people are watching network TV than in past decades. Then you have to consider the big decrease in advertising revenue due to the worst economy in 75 plus years, and you can see why the networks need to make cuts.

I, too, rarely watch the networks - except for 60 Minutes, and a couple of the Thursday night NBC comedies that I DVR so I can skip commercials - also a trend that cannot be making advertisers happy. What little TV I watch in the evenings generally consists of CNN, Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert - not the evening replays, but DVRs from the night before so I can skip the ads. Then my wife has to watch Mad Money and sometimes Fast Money on CNBC...also DVRs from the afternoon, not the evening replays...skipping those commercials, again. The only thing I don't DVR is CNN, and if I was smart, I'd do that too.

The rest of my TV time is HBO, On Demand shows and movies, and NetFlix. If many viewers are like me, commercial TV is in trouble. I'd say Zucker is trying to make lemonade out of a big pile of lemons.

 

[4UH8SIMBKAGN]

The median age of Jay Leno’s current audience is 54, the oldest of all the late night talk shows.

The median age of current NBC prime time shows are:

Scrubs 34
The Office 35
Heroes 37
30 Rock 40
My Name is Earl 42
Chuck 42
The Biggest Loser 43
NBC Sunday Night Football 45
E.R. 46
Lipstick Jungle 46
Life 48
Friday Night Lights 49
Law & Order: SVU 49

If you are going to quote numbers, don't quote them from the May 2008 sweeps. They're OLD. I already posted this (post #3 in this thread) but they are the latest numbers from NOVEMBER 2008. http://tvbythenumbers.com/2008/12/0...brien-rule-the-late-night-november-sweep/9299

 

[4UH8SIMBKAGN]

More from Nikki Finke today from the Jay Leno press conference http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com/nbcs-anti-climactic-leno-announcement/

 

[radioguy555]

I give NBC credit for trying this, and I understand the economics behind it all. But to me it's kind of an overload of these shows. In Fall 2009, NBC will have Leno, Conan, Jimmy Fallon, and Carson Daly (assuming they keep his show) on every night?

 

[andreajesus]

looks that way - i read something yesterday that it's a money thing...costs less to produce a show like Jay's than to produce five hours per week of "episodic" (read dramatic) television or something like that... ???

Andrea

 

[MediaBoy4Radio]

It is a sin that NBC is doing this for Leno........and that they did not do this for Carson.

Enough said

 

[andreajesus]

true... but iirc at that time, they were TOO BUSY courting Letterman - and you know how THAT went...

Andrea

 

[1069_KIFR]

CBS to move Letterman to 9pm! They will snag Jon Stewart from Comedy Central for 11:35. Keep Craig Ferguson at 12:35.

 

[andreajesus]

CBS to move Letterman to 9pm! They will snag Jon Stewart from Comedy Central for 11:35. Keep Craig Ferguson at 12:35.

well, if the Mets can sign "K-Rod" (Francisco Rodriguez for the uninitiated ; they signed him today), anything is possible....

Andrea
(and i'm not even a Mets fan! )

 

[Markxxx]

It is a sin that NBC is doing this for Leno........and that they did not do this for Carson.

Enough said

No one forced Carson to do anything. He could've written his own ticket anywhere on any network he wanted.

He didn't want to do anything but retire.

 

[arnoldevns]

Here's the math on this deal:

Leno's salary for 5 nights a week/ 52 weeks a year: $30 million
Cost to produce his show for 52 weeks a year: probably another $30 million
Cost to produce 1 hour prime time drama for 22 weeks a year: $3 million per episode (or $66 million a year)
Cost to produce 5 prime time dramas for 22 weeks a year: $66 million x 5 = $330 million

Leno will take maybe 4-6 weeks off each year, meaning NBC will have fresh shows 5 nights a week for 46-48 weeks a year.
It'll cost them maybe $60 million a year to make his show. (even if it's $100 million it's a HUGE savings) The cost savings are staggering.
The ratings for Leno will not be as good as the dramas, but they don't have to be for NBC to still rake in a big profit.
They'll also save money because they'll only have to promote 1 show instead of 5.

The downside is for local affiliates. Their late news will suffer due to a probably lower lead-in and the fact that it'll be stuck between two similar comedic shows.

 

[LKellerIII]

It is a sin that NBC is doing this for Leno........and that they did not do this for Carson.

Enough said

Different time - different reality. Traditional network TV wasn't on the ropes financially when Carson retired. And whether or not you like Jay Leno, you have to admit that the man likes to work. I can't see premiering a new 5 night per week talk show with a host who's only willing to work 3 nights per week.

 

[Nate Wesley]

It is a sin that NBC is doing this for Leno........and that they did not do this for Carson.

Enough said

Some story I read mentioned Johnny Carson was offered something like this back when he was a regular Tonight Show host and declined.