A TV Week article about reaction to the tiff over the Boston NBC affiliate's (WHDH) move to potentially replace the upcoming Jay Leno Show with a 10pm newscast had some interesting quotes about the Leno show in general.
Some were surprisingly optimistic:
Ms. Poe-Howfield [general manager of Las Vegas NBC affiliate KVBC] and Louisville’s WAVE general manager Steve Langford, said that NBC’s 10 p.m. lead-ins have always struggled to push viewers into the news. The Leno plan can only stabilize or improve numbers, they said.
“My take is that I’m going to get 39 weeks of fresh programming in a time period that, quite frankly, NBC has had great difficulty with over the past few years,” Mr. Langford said. “I don’t see a lot of downside. I only see upside potential.”
Not everyone sees the upside:
“Given NBC’s track record of late, it could get worse,” Craig Allison, general manager of NBC’s Kansas City affiliate, KSHB, said.
Mr. Allison said he hopes for the best in terms of NBC affiliates and the Leno gamble, but understands that by going with news instead of Leno, a local station would get to keeps the entire ad inventory. Depending on the 10 p.m. news in the market, that could make a significant viewership grab.
“It’s almost a no-brainer. The only thing you have at stake is the relationship you have with the network,” Mr. Allison said.
And what's on the minds of every other NBC affiliate right now? Money.
“If they pull this off, and they [have] a full hour of late news, they’re probably going to make more money than the other way around,” Mr. Langford said of WHDH’s gambit.
As for NBC going "nuclear" and stripping WHDH of its NBC affiliation, here's my favorite quote:
Mr. Allison said he was skeptical that quality stations would rush to NBC to claim the affiliation.
“The line of prospective NBC affiliated desirees is not as long as it was six years ago,” he said.
And reinforcing that NBC has to at least appear to absolutely crush the rebellion, as other stations are just waiting to see what happens before they threaten to bolt themselves.
“If there were other GMs out there that had that concern, it might solidify it in their minds now that maybe they should be thinking along those lines,” Ms. Poe-Howfield said.
via TVWeek.
Wow…bad sign for Leno…
I think we might need to stop looking at this as a bad sign for Leno and question what the long term effect for NBC is.
Hypothetically lets say that a decent percentage of the NBC affiliates follow the lead of WHDH and opt not to air Leno at 10 but instead air an hour of local news, are they going to switch back? Leno isn’t on all year around and eventually NBC is going to programme the 10PM hour with scripted (and reality) content but can they realistically expect to tempt any of these affiliates back into the fold? If the local news hour is as lucrative for them as is being suggested then surely its going to take an almighty effort from NBC or a major breakout hit at 10 to get these affiliates to broadcast the 10PM hour again.
Is the bigger issue for NBC not that if they lose these affiliates they ultimately lose the 10PM hour? If you aren’t being broadcast in major markets then your ratings aren’t going to match what the competition are achieving.
Whose bright idea was this anyway?
If that’s the enthusiasm the affiliates are showing for Leno, this is going to be catastrophic for NBC.
I have a feeling that NBC may be hedging their bets here, by probably shelving quite a bit of Pilots, they may be seeing if the Jay Leno thing actually works because if the affiliates are all upset about it. NBC may have a bigger battle on their hands, one in which if they don’t give in could proven to be fatal.
After all, they may renew more shows than we think but just put off many of the shows to air in January straight through, like Lost.
Shouldnt most of these local news be hurting anyways? Most of NBC’s 10pm hour sucks anyways.
RJ, I believe you’re correct. I think it has gotten worse in the past decade for the NBC affiliates as NBC ratings have tanked and many see this is another step downwards.
It would be nice to see somebody poll those NBC affiliates and see exactly how many are considering doing this (without naming names, of course, since nobody would want to telegraph this to NBC after what happened to WHDH.). You can be sure NBC has fired off letters and emails to every one of them warning them about it.
But if we had a poll, we could see whether this is significant or a tempest in a teapot.
My understanding is that very few NBC affiliates have the legal right to not carry Jay Leno, and the Boston affiliate is one of them. That isn’t to say that some affiliates might push it. Jay Leno has a two year deal with NBC, so even if it “fails,” there is no returning to scripted television from 10-11 pm on NBC until 2011 at the earliest…..if ever. I think we should think of NBC as the new “FOX”, which essentially does not truly program the last hour of prime time.
If the Leno variety hour flops will NBC finally get rid of Zucker?
Rob, ratings-wise, I’d rather think of NBC as the new CW. I think people will watch leno, but just the bored grandparents. There’s no reason for a normal mainstream guy to watch that show when he can watch something interesting somewhere else. I don’t hate Jay Leno, but I want him to fail, just because I dislike every single show on NBC (exept Conan). Ten years ago, people would’ve laughed at you if you said that NBC’s going down in ten years. And now, it doesn’t seem unlikely at all.
“If the Leno variety hour flops will NBC finally get rid of Zucker?”
I doubt it.
Because even if the show is branded a flop I bet it still turns a healthy profit for the network. I’m not even convinced that an affiliates revolt would lead to heads rolling at this point. Given the direction the industry as a whole is heading the affiliate model is becoming increasingly out dated.
If heads were/are going to roll I think its more likely they’d roll over the $4 million an episode flop that is Kings. If the budget reports are true then the episodes we’ve seen have had at least $22 million spent on them and we’ve only seen four episodes so far. By my count 13 episodes of Kings has cost NBC $58 million how heads can’t roll after that I don’t know.
There’s a great comment on this story on the TV Week site, which I’ll copy here:
“WHDH’s contract requires NBC to pay WHDH millions of dollars yearly until 2016. WHDH’s contract and FCC rules allow WHDH to pre-empt programs after 10:00 PM; This gives NBC the opportunity to move their 10:00 show to another station. WHDH is not doing anything illegal. They are simply informing NBC early enough that they have time to find another venue. If NBC pulls the plug on WHDH, rhere will likely be a lawsuit. Knowing NBC’s inability to stand their ground (example: the Book of Daniel standoff with religious groups and sponsers.), they will back off when they get the first call from a lawyer.
I wish NBC and Leno good luck with Leno’s new online talk show.”
Sounds like NBC is f***ed. Contracts matter, as our pal Larry Summers loves to remind us. If NBC didn’t want to leave this door open, they shouldn’t have signed their deal with HDH.
This proves that if the network can’t supply solid programming for their affiliates, then they should just turn that time back over to the affiliates instead of bleeding out money on expensive high concepts with no mass appeal.
NBC is getting what they deserve by brokering such an inane deal to push Leno out in five years in order to retain Conan. I like Conan, but if Conan wanted to bounce, they should have let him bounce.
Might NBC be hedging their bets and keepng Leno around in case O’Brien bombs Leno would be around to bail him out. I do not have faith that 11:30 is a good time for O’Brien, as Letterman and O’Brien are so much alike in my opinion.