UPDATE pg 11, post 155, CONAN is COMING TO TBS!!

[kimmar067]

ITA. I really enjoy Jay Leno, but him being on at 10/9 doesn't really work. I'll watch Letterman over OBrien any day, but I'd really rather watch Leno. I also agree, with a pp, that the odd man out should be Fallon. Personally, I don't like OBrien either, and really wouldn't watch him, but Fallon isn't funny and makes me uncomfortable to watch or hear him.

...yes, ITA...

 

[kimmar067]

....hey, I'm STILL all discombobulated about Cablevision pulling HG-TV and Food Network!

 

[shortbun]

Great! Now they can show something good at 10pm. I thought the show was really bad. I tried to watch but it just wasn't funny. I think he's just not that talented. Letterman(despite all his faults) seems much funnier to me.

 

[momrek06]

So it is definite now...Leno leaves Primetime.

NBC confirms 'Jay Leno Show' leaving primetime
by Michael Ausiello

Raise your hand if you’re surprised by what you’re about to read. NBC Chairman Jeff Gaspin kicked off his network’s portion of the TCA press tour by confirming the worst kept secret in the TV biz: “I can confirm, starting Feb. 12, The Jay Leno Show will no longer air at 10 p.m.”

Gaspin said that, “While [Leno] was performing at acceptable levels for the network, it did not meet our affiliates’ needs, and we realized we had to make a change. My goal right now is to keep Jay, Conan [O'Brien], and Jimmy [Fallon] as part of our late-night lineup. I have spoken to all of them and proposed that The Jay Leno Show move to 11:35, The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien to 12:05, and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon would then start at 1:05.

“As much as I’d like to tell you we have a done deal, that’s not true,” he added. “The talks are ongoing. [But] I hope and expect, before the Olymics begin, we will have everything set. I can’t imagine we won’t.”

Though there’s been no official word yet from Jay, Conan, or Jimmy, Gaspin called the trio “gracious,” adding that they “understood the difficult position” NBC is in. And Carson Daly? Gaspin insists he’ll “remain a part of NBC.” Last Call, however, sounds like it’s dead.

So what goes on at 10 now? NBC prez Angela Bromstad said, “We have absolutely dedicated our resources to fortifying and building up our development slate.” Translation: Leno’s very temporary weeknight home will soon be filled by two more hours of scripted content, an hour of reality, an expanded Dateline, and some repeats. “We’re not going to do five new dramas at 10 p.m.,” Gaspin promised.

In spite of hindsight being 20/20, Gaspin still sees the Leno debacle as a calculated risk and the kind of gamble that he might take again. “I don’t think it’s wrong to take chances,” he said. “Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. Maybe we were a little too early on [in reinventing the 10 p.m. hour]. I still think you have to play with your schedule a little bit differently…

“By the fall,” he added, “you may see us do some interesting stuff with the schedule.”

Does the promise of “some interesting stuff” scare or excite you? And what do you think “some interesting stuff” means to the guy who uprooted a late-night mainstay to prime time? Sound off below.


http://hollywoodinsider.ew.com/2010/01/10/nbc-confirms-jay-leno-show-leaving-primetime/

 

[chisnpeke]

It's not just the exposure, Leno LIKES to work. He goes out around the country a good 40 weekend out of the year to do his own stand-up routines around the country. he did this long before he was on the Tonight Show, and he has never stopped. Even when the bucks & status of being on the Tonight Show, came to him, he has kept up with his weekly stand up. He LIKES to work. If FOX offered him a weekly contract after getting canned from NBC, he'd take it.

He works hard. And he is my favorite late night comic. Actually, probably my favorite up there with Ellen Degeneres as far as comedians go.

 

[bicker]

In the absence of the pressure that what-could-have-been manipulation of public opinion by irate affiliates, the gamble that NBC took, was almost surely the better bet for the network, though surely not for the affiliates. The affiliates attacked hard, or some others attacked hard, still to their benefit. They fought for what was better for themselves, rather than what was better for the network, and in doing so they were doing what they were supposed to be doing, trying to push things in a direction that they believed would be to their own benefit. And they were successful. They won the battle.

Now the real question is whether or not "what comes next" is even worse for them. Business is a matter of risk. And whatever forces worked to push back at this move by the network took a big risk that, in getting the network to back-pedal on this. They could have essentially jumped out of the frying pan into the fire.

Only time will tell.

 

[bicker]

<duplicate message>

 

[auntie]

I'd rather see Leno pull a "Letterman" and walk. If there are other networks calling, he ought to answer. A half hour program?..sounds like they're setting him up for a fall so they can kick him to curb permanently.

 

[bicker]

Part of the original intent of all this was to keep Leno from going to another network. That's NBC's top priority, because a Leno show on 11:30 PM on another network will almost surely kill whatever NBC tries to put in that spot.

I think Leno is trying to force Conan into walking away. I believe NBC is allowed to push Conan out the half-hour, to fit Leno in, but it sucks for Conan so badly that Conan might just be willing to forego the money he'd get (if NBC fired him), and just walk away. That would leave NBC with Leno at 11:30, and things could theoretically go back to the way they were before, after a few years to recover. The only thing that NBC wanted, that they don't get, is the kind of control that they wanted to assert over the Tonight Show by giving Leno a time limit, in the first place. (They were trying to avoid the situation that they got into with Carson, where basically NBC wasn't making much because Carson could demand so much.)(

 

[Mickey's Minion]

I thought this was always the plan, to allow Conan to fail so that NBC could put Leno back in.

In the couple of years leading up to Leno's departure, NBC started to learn how unpopular Conan would really be as the Tonight Show host.

IIRC, there were numerous threads on here and articles in the media that said that due to contractual promises, NBC had to allow Conan to take over the Tonight show. But it was widely believed that Conan would tank, allowing NBC to remove him and put Leno back on the Tonight Show. The Leno show at 10:00 was just fabricated to keep Leno around. It was all a master plan to fix a mistake made 5 years previous when Conan was promised the Tonight Show. Again, iirc, it was said that the 45 million NBC would have to pay Conan to buy out his contract was far less than the revenue they would lose.

Conan has performed exactly as NBC thought he would. He has lost 45% of the Tonight show viewership.

I know the threads are out there with links to "sources" saying that this was all the master plan if somebody wanted to search.

In a couple of years, this will just be blip on NBC's radar, fodder for jokes on how they made the Coke blunder look mundane.

 

[Wall-E1]

I think it is unfair to compare Jay Leno's viewership and Conan's viewership. Leno had the benefit of hit t.v. shows as his lead in. Conan(no offense to Leno) has a two bit variety show as a lead in. So, of course the nightly news and Conan's show will take a hit in viewership numbers because of this. If Leno's lead in had been a forth place show for all of those years, his numbers would not have been near what they were. Give Conan hit shows like E.R. and Law and Order as his lead in, and his viewership numbers would definitely be much improved. NBC is clueless lately on programming decisions.

 

[kimmar067]

I think it is unfair to compare Jay Leno's viewership and Conan's viewership. Leno had the benefit of hit t.v. shows as his lead in. Conan(no offense to Leno) has a two bit variety show as a lead in. So, of course the nightly news and Conan's show will take a hit in viewership numbers because of this. If Leno's lead in had been a forth place show for all of those years, his numbers would not have been near what they were. Give Conan hit shows like E.R. and Law and Order as his lead in, and his viewership numbers would definitely be much improved. NBC is clueless lately on programming decisions.

...and that's why they're always in 3rd place in ratings...

 

[Wall-E1]

...and that's why they're always in 3rd place in ratings...

I thought they were in forth(sometimes fifth, behind CSPAN).

 

[Wall-E1]

...and that's why they're always in 3rd place in ratings...

I thought they were in forth(sometimes fifth, behind CSPAN).

They need to get back to the days of producing high quality dramas such as Manimal.

 

[Wall-E1]

Sorry, it appears that I have developed a bit of a stutter.

 

[kimmar067]

I thought they were in forth(sometimes fifth, behind CSPAN).

They need to get back to the days of producing high quality dramas such as Manimal.

.....mmmmrowwwwww......

 

[bicker]

I don't think it makes sense to say NBC is clueless with regard to programming: Remember, NBC doesn't exist in a vacuum. It isn't even a business unit, but rather is just one of several services offered by a business unit, a business unit that has brought us, in recent years, Burn Notice, Royal Pains, In Plain Sight, Psych, etc. They're trying to navigate a way towards a different model for television. We may not like where they're trying to go, but that doesn't mean it isn't the best direction for them.

 

[kimmar067]

Sorry, it appears that I have developed a bit of a stutter.

....s-s-s-s-s-s-s-so wh-wh-wh-wh-what....

 

[kimmar067]

....my favorite part of the Jay Leno Show...

 

[Wall-E1]

I don't think it makes sense to say NBC is clueless with regard to programming: Remember, NBC doesn't exist in a vacuum. It isn't even a business unit, but rather is just one of several services offered by a business unit, a business unit that has brought us, in recent years, Burn Notice, Royal Pains, In Plain Sight, Psych, etc. They're trying to navigate a way towards a different model for television. We may not like where they're trying to go, but that doesn't mean it isn't the best direction for them.

Are you an NBC exec? Just kidding.

I will say that I am a faithful viewer of Biggest Loser, a show that I consider to be NBC's finest.