On Sat, Nov 28, 2009 at 1:21 PM, PGage <[email protected]> wrote: > > But your observation suggests something else too - something that has > been growing on me the last couple of months. Rather than the Jay Leno > Show being a high stakes gamble by a major television company to try > to fundamentally change the game, it may simply be a recognition that > prime time network programming is just not that important any more. In > that sense, the Jay Leno Show is the equivalent of George Costanza > walking around in sweat pants. > > But that can't be quite right - even if the days of big networks > making a lot of money from programming the 10:00 pm hour are numbered, > the Leno experiment has multi million dollar implications for other > high profit areas in NBC (and thus GE)'s portfolio: it so far has > decreased profitability in the 9:00 hour, it has decreased > profitability in late night, and it has decreased profitability in the > late local news for NBC affiliates. From that stand point it is hard > to imagine anything more important to NBC than fixing this Leno > problem, and yet it is hard to see much evidence that they are > thinking deep thoughts about it.
Here's my thinking: NBC signed Leno to a two year contract. After two years: Conan has been hosting the Tonight Show for two years and he's hit his stride, or at least he has a core audience locked up and a Fox or ABC Leno show would not be a mortal threat. The economy will either be in a rebound or stuck in a funk. If it's rebounding, advertising money will come back and in the spring of 2011 NBC will, through Universal, start a pilot process to find five scripted series to run at 10 PM. Leno has to play out the season and hope somebody wants him for 11:30, which isn't guaranteed. If the economy is stuck, NBC has banked the money they haven't spent on scripted series and they either re-sign Leno or they replace him with something equally cheap. The competing networks might well be in cutback mode also and NBC would be forward-thinking rather than simply cheap. If GE sells NBC, there will be new execs in charge, and their thinking would be different than the current crew, which makes my supposition obsolete. In any case, NBC may see the Leno Show as a situational necessity rather than a problem no matter what its weaknesses. 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
