Robert posted the video of Julia-Louis Dreyfus joking about being asked not to appear on The Jay Leno Show.
Today the LA Times notes that CBS and ABC are discouraging their stars from appearing, but Fox and HBO are encouraging their stars to go on the show. If you think guest stars drive TJLS ratings it may make sense for ABC and CBS, but if you think TJLS appearances are effective marketing (and they all thought Tonight Show appearances were with lower ratings) then it may be a case of cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Rival networks ABC and CBS are discouraging their stars from appearing on the prime-time talk show. They are determined not to let Leno's 10 p.m. program undercut viewership of their costly dramas when they are trying to build audiences at the start of the TV season.
[...]
Several other TV networks, particularly Fox and HBO, are encouraging their talent to appear as guests on Leno's show. Hugh Laurie, star of Fox's highly rated drama "House," appeared on Leno on Friday. One incentive to showcase Laurie, however, is that "House" is produced by NBC's production arm, Universal Media Studios.
via LA Times.
Since FOX doesn’t have 10pm dramas, it doesn’t matter anyway. Win-Win.
Doesn’t really seem to be a big deal – so far, anyways.
Jay’s had some pretty solid guests during his first 2-3 weeks, and there’s plenty of other entertainment stars to choose from.
@Robert and Bill, The Wednesday post isn’t working for IE
(sorry for posting this in several places, but I wasn’t sure you’d see it)
Honestly, how often do Gary Sinise, Mark Harmon, Jon Cryer, David Krumholtz etc. do talk shows anyway? CBS is just being dumb here. This will have minimal effect on their 10 PM drama ratings and could help improve the numbers for whatever show the actor is plugging.
Thanks Holly, I emailed Robert.
Doesn’t that sort of undercut Fox’s local news?
Jeremy, in the butterfly wing flap causality world, you can guess that better ratings for Leno reduces those for the local Fox news, but the fact is that of the 18-49 demo viewers watching TV at 10pm last night 95% of them were not watching The Jay Leno Show, so the effect is likely to be insignificant since so much more than Leno competes at 10pm.
I can understand this to some extent, but I think if I were CBS brass the only thing I would make sure my stars avoid would be appearing on Leno on the same day that their 10 pm show airs.
yeah, this is hardly “gracious” of FOX since it doesn’t broadcast nationally at 10pm and doesn’t have to worry about its stars competing with it.
It’s just Fox seeing an opportunity for promotion with no downside for them.
Not only do they not have a 10pm, but they don’t have a nightly late-night talk show either. It’s completely for their benefit to use Leno as a promotional tool.
I think this is HILARIOUS, seeing as how both ABC & CBS were talking about how they were going to cream Jay in the 10P time. Granted, Jay’s ratings aren’t huge, but do you think it’s doing better than those nets expected? Seriously, if Jay is an actual joke to them, why wouldn’t they allow their stars on there?
Methinks they are a little threatened.