On Sat, Oct 3, 2009 at 2:33 PM, PGage <[email protected]> wrote: > > OTOH, the Dave Affair must > have set off at least a yellow light for NBC, as it illustrates the > potential danger in putting so many eggs in one man's basket. Whatever > his faults as TV entertainer, Leno is by all accounts a good guy who > is maybe literally the last person to be caught up in any kind of > scandal - but what would happen to NBC if Leno had a personal or > health problem that required taking him off the air immediately? If > NBC didn't have a back up plan before, I suspect that they started > putting one together Thursday.
I don't think CBS expected what they got from Dave on Thursday. So to say that NBC is relieved because they don't expect anything like that from Jay is a stretch. If there is a scandal, it will blindside everybody, including NBC, just like Dave's confession did. I understand the concept of NBC being risk-adverse and Jay being reliable and somewhat square but the context has been relying on a 10 PM talk show 5 nights a week in lieu of scripted programming, not how likely Jay is to be a problem versus other talk show hosts. You make a good point about a backup plan. The competitive advantage of topicality is lost if the Leno Show has to broadcast reruns for any length of time and Jay has been stubborn about not having guest hosts (except for Katie Couric once on an April Fools' Day). As for ratings, it will be interesting to see any signs of panic just before or during November sweeps. As sweeps means more to the affiliates than the network, low numbers should put pressure on NBC. Tom --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
