On Fri, Sep 7, 2012 at 9:32 AM, Tom Wolper <[email protected]> wrote:
> "Late-night talk show host Jay Leno took a 50% pay cut as part of > NBC's budget-chopping effort last month at "The Tonight Show," the > network said, detailing the scope of the changes for the first time as > well as the reasoning behind them. > > The outsized pay cut, which took Mr. Leno's salary down to around $15 > million, helped NBC slash the show's $100 million annual budget by > about 20%, the network said. At the same time, Mr. Leno, the leading > late night host, extended his contract for another two years to May > 2014." > > > http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443589304577635841079042920.html > I think the WSJ has burried the lead here, which is that Leno extended for 2 years (maybe we already knew that and I repressed it). So now the conversation may have not only been "Jay, take a pay cut or we will fire even more of your staff", but also, "take a pay cut or we will fire even more of your staff and being in Fallon when your contract expires". Related to some items we have discussed on this list regarding this topic, is that NBC is still making a profit from late night (some had thought it had become a loss center), but not nearly as much as I had speculated (unless there are other sources of revenue besides ad revenue to consider). The WSJ reports that: "Tonight's" ad revenue fell to $159 million last year from $255 million in 2007, according to Kantar Media". I had speculated NBC's Tonight Show revenue to be $300M, which apparently was high even 5 years ago (this must mean Tonight gets a significantly smaller share of the available ad revenue at the 11:35 hour than I had guessed). Still, they are probably making a profit of somewhere around $79M (probably less, to get this figure I subtracted what I figure to be their downsidzed annual Tonight Show budgeted expenses, including Leno's salary of $80M, based on about 45 weeks of production. Even if I did that right, there are probably other expenses I am not accounting for). I can see why a big corp like Comcast would want to get more than $79M out of the Late Night slot, especially given how much cash they just sunk. Also interesting to me, the WSJ reports that Late Show's ad revenue only dropped from $205M to $155M from 2007 to 2012. That means that 5 years ago, Leno was generating $50M (32%) more in revenue than Dave ($255M to $205), while now he is only generating $4M (2.5%) more in revenue ($159M to $155M). Can this be correct? If it is, it is even more understandable that Comcast would want to cut Leno's salary. -- 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
