First Sumner Redstone, now Moonves. I love the smack talk!
CBS CEO Les Moonves said that NBC’s decision to put Jay Leno on in prime time will help his company’s bottom line.
“We were the No. 1 network at 10 o’clock last year,” Mr. Moonves told analysts and investors during CBS’ quarterly earnings conference call Thursday.
He estimated that CBS took in 38% of the broadcast ad revenue available at 10 p.m., and that even if Leno does great for NBC, he expects CBS’ ad revenue share to jump to “45%, maybe 47%.”
“We don’t break out how much each time period is worth, but 10% of an arguably many-hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars pie is a lot of money,” Mr. Moonves said. “That’s why we wish Jay well. We think this is a big plus for us and ABC in terms of revenue.”
via TVWeek
i will either be on ABC or CBS at 10pm
That still does not mean it’s a bad financial decision for NBC. Maybe I’m starting to drink the Koolaide, but if NBC is correct that it can program 5 nights for 40 plus weeks at the cost one of one night of a 22 episode season scripted show, NBC can lose a lot of its audience and still increase its profit margain by a lot.
David1, I don’t disagree with you. Leno at 10 is potentially a good financial move for both NBC & CBS!
Where does it end? Move Leno to 9, bring in Conan at 10!
Nick C, It ends right here.
Bill, that was no April Fool’s day joke…
You guys are prophets!
I think Leno at 10 will Murder the Tonight Show with Conan. This will open the door for people to switch over to Letterman and tune out The Tonight Show all together.
It’s weird. I can’t see a penny’s worth of difference between ANY of the late night talk shows – except Craig Ferguson, who’s completely nuts and has various oddball guests on like repetitive visits from Kristin Bell (who he’s obviously in love with), Shirley Manson (a fellow Scot!), and the like.
Back in the days when the fight was between Dennis Miller, Arsenio Hall, Leno and Letterman, I used to categorize them like this:
1) Dennis Miller was for people trying to stay awake. (You couldn’t get his pop culture references otherwise.)
2) Arsenio Hall was for people trying to get to sleep.
3) Letterman was for people who were already asleep.
4) Leno was for people who were in a coma.
The current crop is basically the same sort of thing except there’s more of them. Jimmy Fallon isn’t even a factor.
They’re all funny guys, but having been around since the days of Jack Paar, let’s face it, there’s nothing new here and there never will be. These are formula shows that make police procedurals seem like an LSD trip.
Richard Steven Hack said:
“repetitive visits from Kristin Bell (who he’s obviously in love with)”
I think all men are at least a little in love with Kristin Bell.
RSN – that post was spectacular!
Yup, can’t blame Craig for having the hots for Kristen. I’ve got over two thousand pics of her on my hard drive – plus the videos of her appearances on his show and anybody else’s I can get my hands on.
The visits from Shirley Manson are more interesting to me, though – Shirley’s a character in her own right, and to see these two Scots leaving the audience behind while discussing their home country – and haggis – is just hilarious.
Until Johnny Carson comes back from the dead, I won’t watch any of those talk shows. Letterman is ok, he has a bit (just a bit) of an edge to him, but I find Leno completely un-funny and un-watchable
my 2.25 cents
Love Moonves. Love anybody in this business who just openly calls out a competitor. And of course he’s 100% right.
Craig Ferguson has oddly become my favorite as well. I think he is so good with guests that they out to ditch his sketch comedy segment (which is pretty spotty) and do another segment with guests. As for Jimmy Fallon, has that guy ever been even a little bit funny once in his entire career? Judging by the ratings, America disagrees with me, though.
its better for ABC not CBS people will realize next fall that they are tired of procedural shows and they want dramadies like Ugly Betty, Flash Forward, V and Inside the Box.
ABCFanatic, way to live up to your name.
As long as the baby-boomers control the HH count, procedurals will dominate the ratings. So you better wait until baby-boomers lose their grip on HH before you say those kind of things.
Les is scarred. He should be. He may have the highest ratings, but he also has the highest costs. And don’t forget, the CBS shows skew increasinly older and Jay may beat CBS in the demo. Be scarred Les because if Jay is a success you will be out at CBS. Shut your mouth!
I’m curious as to how this whole Leno thing will play out. I know a lot of people are talking about it bombing this year. I think it’s going to get comparably terrible ratings, but that it’ll stay on for a couple years because it’s so cheap.
But what happens when they inevitably have to cancel it or Leno retires for real? Are they going to have to come up with five hours of new original programming, plus keep all of the shows that will currently be on the air? I feel like NBC isn’t looking at the long term here. It seems like this Leno deal is dooming them, it’s just a matter of when that doom falls.
If this was such a good idea, why hasn’t the Fox Network done it for their currently empty time slot then?
I’m gonna treat Jay’s show just as I treat The O’Reilly Factor: not going to watch every day, just watch when my favorite shows aren’t on.
At 11:30, there’s nothing for me to watch but Jay Leno (don’t like Letterman).
And that’s good for CBS, a network I don’t watch at all. But I did check it out for the first time in a while this week. I like Gary Unmarried, I may tune in again