I am starting to see a small piece of inaccurate conventional wisdom begin to get repeated online about Leno. James Poniewozik<http://tunedin.blogs.time.com/author/jponiewozik/> James Poniewozik at Time.com ( http://tunedin.blogs.time.com/2010/01/08/jaypocalypse-now-what-is-nbc-thinking/?xid=rss-topstories#ixzz0c3TCYVM1) says this:
"As I said, to be fair to NBC, Leno actually did seem to fall within expectations ratings-wise, if on the low end. (Now NBC's *hopes* for Leno—that's another story.) He beat other networks' reruns in December though he was usually third against original programming—like NBC had said." I have seen similar statements elsewhere. <http://search.twitter.com/search?q=He%20beat%20other%20networks%27%20reruns%20in%20December%20though%20he%20was%20usually%20third%20against%20original%20programming%E2%80%94like%20NBC%20had%20said.%20><http://www.google.com/search?q=He%20beat%20other%20networks%27%20reruns%20in%20December%20though%20he%20was%20usually%20third%20against%20original%20programming%E2%80%94like%20NBC%20had%20said.%20><http://smarterfox.com/wikisearch/search?q=He%20beat%20other%20networks%27%20reruns%20in%20December%20though%20he%20was%20usually%20third%20against%20original%20programming%E2%80%94like%20NBC%20had%20said.%20&locale=en-US><http://www.oneriot.com/search?p=smarterfox&ssrc=smarterfox_popup_bubble&spid=8493c8f1-0b5b-4116-99fd-f0bcb0a3b602&q=He%20beat%20other%20networks%27%20reruns%20in%20December%20though%20he%20was%20usually%20third%20against%20original%20programming%E2%80%94like%20NBC%20had%20said.%20> Also, I had a short email exchange with our old friend Aaron Barnhart about this as well, because I think he implied something similar in his radio spot on KNX yesterday (http://blogs.kansascity.com/tvbarn/2010/01/dumpjay.html) It is inaccurate (or at least incomplete) to say that Leno beat other network's reruns in December. What he did (most of the time) is beat ABC's reruns. He has almost never beaten a CBS rerun (with the exception of one or two Numb3rs reruns - and then it was close, and only in the demo, not total viewers). But he was always beat, and beat badly, by the CSIs and the Mentalist >From week 4 to Week 15 (not counting the first three weeks, when ratings were abnormally high, or last week, when they were abnormally low) Leno averaged 5.1 M viewers per night, for a demo rating of about 1.5. I suppose this is the "low end" of NBC's rating expectations, if by that you mean the minimum rating that NBC said Leno needed in order to turn a profit. I don't think anyone really believes that this was the level NBC expected The Jay Leno show to perform at. Plus, of course, Leno did not "catch them on the curves" - he was unable to beat, or even come a close second to, the CBS 10:00 programs when they were in reruns. When NBC says (as it has many times) that Leno has performed as expected, though they understand he is not delivering enough viewers to the affiliates for the late local news, it is talking out of both sides of its ass. Nobody thinks that NBC intentionally scheduled 5 hours a week at 10:00 that would not deliver enough viewers for the late local news. The current state of affairs can only mean that the Leno show has not been doing as well in the ratings as NBC expected it to. One element in the story yesterday that has not seemed to get a lot of attention is that FTVLive reported that it was the accountants at NBC who said "You know what, Leno really is not making money for us" (see the link above to the KNX piece on the story for the audio quote). As far as I know the actual profit loss statement is not publicly available, but from the beginning I have not been convinced that Leno can make a net profit for NBC at the 5M viewer level, and I think that truth is what is leading to the current developments. Leno averages about 5.3M viewers for T-TH, and I think if they had 2 extra days to write and produce they would put out a better product and have the potential to build that up to 5.5M. This is why I have argued that what NBC should be doing is truncating the Jay Leno Show to a 3 night a week program, which would have preserved their relationship with Conan, and given them only 2 hours a week of programming to fill instead of 5.
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