My humorous prediction over a year ago that NBC would move to a 24 hour Today/Tonight show network takes another step towards reality.
My condensation of the article would be "NBC's going to decide what the news-tainment story of the day will be and bang that drum all day and night long". Meanwhile, look for them to get crushed even worse during prime-time next season once the newness of the Jay show wears off.
Stotsky hints that one potential positioning [of Leno at 10] will be as an accompaniment to the network's news programming. “He [Leno] likes to talk about this as a broadcasting brand. You can start your day getting informed on topical issues with Today, get deeper insight with Nightly News and Brian Williams, and then laugh about the news at 10 with Leno.”
Leno's ability to break news—from Arnold Schwarzenegger announcing his candidacy for governor of California back in 2003, to President Obama's recent appearance to discuss the AIG bonus scandal—is being viewed seriously by rival cable news networks and by local stations with 10 p.m. newscasts.
“Whether or not we'll source audience away from 10 p.m. news remains to be seen,” Stotsky says. “One of the hallmarks of his comedy is his ability to talk about the issues of the day in a way that's fun and entertaining.”
via Broadcasting & Cable.
Do they realize that there is no chance of this working? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, NBC will continue to bleed viewers until they take real chances on shows to try to find another hit. They have come a long way from Friends and Seinfeld.
We already have this, its called the Daily Show
Are they really saying that Leno is going to be more newsy or is this just spin?
yeah.. stick colbert and stuart on prime time! it’d do better than L&O reruns
This sounds like The Daily Show with Jay Leno, which would suck. A lot.
At least NBC seems to realise that Leno’s new show needs some kind of format change to work at 10.
This is going to tank, not only will the affiliates be upset (after all, the 11 o’clock news that they have right now is suppose to be what Jay is going to offer, what’s going on today!)
This won’t work out, I know it’s cheap to produce and that ratings could be catastrophic and the show could be still making money because after all, the biggest cost of that program is probably Jay himself.
The thing about TV now is that even with repeats on other channels at 10, people is simply going to decide to watch something else on their cable or satellite TV. They have so many options to choose from and now that Internet is a full fledge substitute of the television. NBC won’t get more viewers, affiliates are going to be upset because they get no lead in from Jay for the 11 o’clock news, and this will probably lead to an ugly battle in which I only can see Jay either moving back to his old time slot or getting bought out. Maybe reducing the Jay Leno show to twice a week or something, but that would sit well with Jay either. This isn’t going to go over too well with anyone.
I hope NBC has some pilots they shot just in case this thing bombs so they can put something on TV that people may want to watch. I hope also that they renew many shows that they have and put them on 13 episode runs so that in case Jay does bomb, they can prolong the seasons to 22-26 episodes.
if its not a variety show-or something like old carson
i think i will fail misreably as there will be no reson to watch
i can tell you right now my wife isnt gonna miss her CSI episodes-whichever-or greys private practice to watch jay-right now i gotta fight for the remote to watch things we both like
if its late night fare with celebs trying to hawk their newest movie etc
its like they are trying to send us to bed early
ill watch regular programming and wait for letterman..or dvr jay lolz
Duncan Leno would have to bomb to an obscene degree for NBC to feel the need to pull him from the schedule. I think people need to drop the idea that Leno isn’t going to be on air for the duration of his scheduled run, he will be not least of all because NBC won’t have enough shows to replace him with. It completely undermines the idea that Leno represents a cheap bottom line for 10 to then have a five new 10PM shows ready in the wings to take over in case he bombs. And what happens if he doesn’t bomb? Where the hell do they put these shows they’ve paid for?
In terms of him detracting from the news that follows him with this kind of show I’m not sure I completely buy that logic. I don’t think people are less likely to watch the news because they’ve watched a comedy show that has topical elements, which is essentially what they’re pitching here. NBC are suggesting that Jay Leno is going to anchor the NBC 10PM news.
On top of that if NBC can spin it and handle it right then there’s the potential that with this kind of show Leno actually enhances his value as a lead-in for the news shows that follow him. If he mentions story x during his show the hope is that people then stick around for the news to find out more about it. That’s obviously not something they’re going to be able to manage every night but its absolutely something they can manage with bigger stories.
Alex, Network don’t have to pick up every pilot that they shoot, and oftentimes they don’t pick up all of their pilots.
I just don’t know if there are additional people who will watch Leno at 10pm then if Leno was on at 11:30. As the article suggest, when the novelty wears off, where will the ratings settle at.
Duncan I am well aware that networks don’t pick up all of the pilots they order.
What you don’t seem to be aware of or considering is that pilots are just that a pilot, one episode. The networks shoot a lot of them and then give the ones they like the most season orders. NBC aren’t going to give a pilot they like a season pick up ‘just in case’ Leno bombs and they have to change the schedule. Part of the sell for Leno at 10 has been that it’s a good bottom line, ordering episodes of multiple shows that you may never need to air completely destroys the bottom line argument. NBC aren’t going to do it. They aren’t going to hold shows back in case they need to replace Leno. Its too expensive.
Like I said people have to come to terms with the fact that next season Leno is on at 10 come hell or high water and there’s really not much NBC or anyone else can do about that now. Its too expensive to develop a slate of ’back-up’ shows that you then can’t fit onto the schedule. What NBC does if Leno bombs so bad they have to pull him off air is anyone’s guess but my guess would be that they’d rush produce a slate of cheap reality filler and mix that with repeats.
Another potential “back up” plan for Leno performing badly is simply to keep him on the air for an entire year, and change plans in 2010-11. A “bombing” Leno is still cheaper than any alternatives that are likely to do better, and alternatives that are cheaper (like repeats) are likely to do worse.
Alex’s point above bears repeating. Fans of shows that are threatened by Leno (Chuck, Medium, Earl, Law & Order definitely; Parks & Rec, Southland perhaps) should not hold out hope that their shows will be ordered into limited production “just in case”. There is no chance that will happen.
If Leno was in hospital yesterday with a Heart condition the Network will be kacking their pants by now!!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8018082.stm
Craig, the reports are that he’ll be back on the air Monday night, if that’s true, unless his doctors told him he needs to take 6-8 months off (sending the Chuck fans into a complete frenzy!) I doubt NBC is too worried.
Bill
At what point though do/can the affiliates start to bail out of the Network altogether?
If NBC lost say 10 affiliates in Big/Medium markets because of this does that then put the Network into terminal decline?
I agree that NBC don’t appear to have a backup plan and that’s what makes this a high risk strategy, personally I think it’ll bomb pretty fast (read my previous post re Wogan in the UK to see why).
I accept it’s really cheap TV, but if the show starts to get an average audience of only 3m per night (and I’m betting it’ll be under that within 8 weeks of launch) then the affiliates will be up in arms surely?
On a different note……I have an idea for a different poll.
Instead of a “Vote for the show you’d think will be renewed” how about….
Between 1 and 10 (where 1 is certain cancellation and 10 is certain renewal) vote for each show to be renewed…..anyone voting has to vote on at least 10 shows……use stat variance to exclude people who only vote 1 or 10.
It would be interesting to see what the averages are for each show….and who ended up as the “I got most right” winner.
Just a bit of fun….
Craig Bill, Robert or somebody else may very well be able to correct me on this but I’m not sure the affiliates can really do anything about Leno. From all the stories that have come to light as of late the vast majority of them are locked into contracts that they can’t afford to break. The real issue NBC has on the Leno situation is when it comes time to renegotiate deals with the affiliates who aren’t happy about Leno at 10 and even then I’m not entirely sure what the affiliates can/will realistically do given the general changing climate within television right now.
In terms of how the affiliates react to Leno’s numbers it’ll depend entirely upon what they are and how/if it effects their numbers. If they don’t see real drops with Leno leading into them or see some kind of increase then they’re not really going to care what Leno’s doing. If however their numbers drop then noise will be made but again I don’t think there’s much the vast majority of them can really do about it.
As it stands I think Leno is going to out perform the expectations of the majority. I’d be very surprised if he doesn’t pull similar numbers at 10 to what he’s been pulling in the late night slot and those are above what most seem to be predicting. Whether he can sustain that number all year is another question entirely but I don’t see any reason why not – its not like he’s going to be on television more than he currently is. He does a nightly show every week now so its not like his fans aren’t used to that format and are suddenly going to be completely overexposed to him.
Right now I don’t think NBC needs a back up because I agree with Bill, Leno is going to be on all of next season pretty much regardless of his numbers. The real question for Leno isn’t will he make it through a full season next year but will he still be on NBC in two-years time. That’s the only importance his numbers have now, whether he’ll get a second season at 10 and I’d also imagine it’ll have some kind of impact on any potential deal he might try and make with ABC should he bomb at 10.
And I have no idea what your Wogan comparison is but trying to compare British television with American television rarely works out well.
They don’t need to produce back up shows for when/if Leno tanks… That’s what re-runs are for
I keep hearing David Letterman making jokes about the 10 time slot regarding Leno and himself. If this has any auccess would CBS consider moving Letterman to 10 p.m.? Even though CBS is very strong at 9 p.m./10 p.m. Eastern.
If NBC Universal wants further declines in revenue/profit then sure why not go for it. This network is on the virtual break of becoming a CW style network.
If Leno’s ratings are low won’t ABC and CBS put weaker shows at 10:00 forcing NBC to face even tougher competition with their regular shows 8:00 – 10:00?