While some station groups have taken a let's-not-jump-to-conclusions approach to NBC's Jay Leno gamble, a top executive at Gray Television was far less circumspect Monday. Saying the new 10 p.m. show is hurting late news ratings, he suggested that NBC rethink its options."The Leno experiment is not working so far," said Bob Prather, Gray's president-COO. "I'm sure they'll stick with it longer than they need to ... their ego won't let them probably get rid of it soon enough."
Prather did say he had no specifics on any revenue impact the show may be having at Gray's 10 NBC stations, but that it has dragged down late-news ratings and "in the long run it could hurt us" significantly.
He said Gray is monitoring the situation and will make its feelings known to NBC.
via MediaPost.
I'd say they just made their feelings known, in exactly the way they intended.
Whether it's the case or not, NBC affiliates will likely take the free pass of "Jay Leno ate my homework" as they announce their earnings this fall.
I hope affiliate dissatisfaction causes NBC to dump the 10 pm Jay Leno show.
Here are Gray’s NBC stations by market rank
63 Huntington/Charleston, WV
76 Omaha
85 Madison
91 South Bend, IN
103 Greenville, NC
115 Lansing, MI
127 Eau Claire, WI
151 Panama City, FL
184 Grand Junction, CO
194 Parkersburg, WV
source: wiki
Lol, can this article count as one of the bingo squares?
This is what WHDH-TV in Boston was afraid off. Allthough they are owned by Sunbeam they made waves by trying to debut an evening newscast in the 10PM news slot. NBC said no way, and not wanting to lose NBC affilation they cleared Leno.
CBS and ABC are enjoying themselves on this issue. Especially CBS. CSI: Miami and NY are still doing fine and The Mentalist is doing well as ever.
I think the Leno situation is a great thing for affiliates, if only to pin their declining revenue excuse on.
DUMP LENO DUMP LENO
nkinsey, you have a great point – news outlets are getting lazy, and now they have something to blame their declining ratings on. I guess they never considered that maybe…just maybe…their 11pm product is a piece of crap.
I’m going to keep track of the affiliate grumblings here. (Did I miss any?)
People still watch the news? I can get the news whenever I want on my phone!
And so it begins.
I have harped on this like the obsessive jerk that I often am, but there is no denying that NBC is doing serious damage to its affiliate relationships by sacrificing them for the few extra shekels they can make from airing a cheap–and cheaply produced–talk show. If Leno continues to sink, this carping will only get worse. And there is little doubt that NBC has stations that Fox would like to pick off. This will only aid them in that endeavor.
Yes, local news shows have their own problems, and retention itself is becoming an outmoded concept, but there is no doubt that drawing less than half (and in some cases less than 20%) the audience that your competitors are drawing can be seriously damaging to the programming running after it.
But, hey, I guess that’s for NBC’s next owner to worry about.
Wow! Can NBC get any worst? They have medical shows they don’t need (didn’t the end of the ER run give them a clue on the medical shows?-minus House and Greys, of course). And they have Leno who just could not fade into the sunset, he had to come back and drag down ratings for local news and Conan. Go away Jay, it failed!!
NBC should start doing procedurals of their own instead of Leno.
My disappointment in the Leno Show is the complete lack of imagination in the show itself. A hybrid car race? A video 10 questions segment? Is this the best they could do? How much of this sameness did they think the viewers would take? A cancelation at this point would be a mercy killing.