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NBC is putting Jay Leno in the cat food aisle, but Time magazine has put Jay Leno on its cover this week. Unbelievably, there’s nothing new in the article (and people wonder why print media is dying). There’s just one interesting quote from, of all people, former NBC President Fred Silverman: “If the Leno Show works, it will be the most significant thing to happen in broadcast television in the last decade.” But I’ve been asking NBC repeatedly what is the metric that’ll be used to determine if the Jay Leno show is successful? In response, I get a lot of “ums” and “ers”. And yet, Time magazine says “NBC has set the bar low enough for a sleeping man to clear. If Leno can just get the ratings he did in late night, some 5 million viewers (paltry by 10 p.m. standards), his show will be more profitable than what it replaced in that time slot, reps say.” Leno himself laughs off the networks’ numbers obsession, recently telling someone I know, “I have no idea how that works. Just because I like women doesn’t mean I want to be a gynecologist.” But only a compliant newsmagazine would accept that NBC metric without laughing out loud at the ridiculousness of it. For crissakes, advertisers already have balked at paying primetime rates for what will be the Leno Show‘s late night ratings. And let’s remember that Leno’s primetime ratings still won’t equal those of the worst viewed scripted 10 PM show. Once again, this is Jeff Zucker managing for margins, not ratings. (But I’m told he now regrets his statement last March that “I don’t think we’ll ever be able to say, ‘NBC is No. 1 in prime time.’”) 
Meanwhile, I can tell you that Leno is telling pals NBC has not given his Jay Leno Show even one fresh or significant idea for the new show. “Not one idea,” Leno has confided. The result is that the Jay Leno Show will be identical to Jay’s familiar format except in chronology: monologue, comics doing filmed segments, guest interviews, then end with those those lame Jaywalking and All-Stars bits. Which just shows how badly NBC needs a real leader. I still recall how, in late 1993 when NBC was in last place, Don Ohlmeyer came in and the first thing he did was to retool Jay’s Tonight Show. What’s Jeff Gaspin doing? (Blank stares…) One last thing — if the Leno Show doesn’t work, Jay thinks no one will even remember. And that his legacy will be that he hosted The Tonight Show for 17 years.
What Is NBC’s Metric For Leno’s Success?
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we need a renaissance of independent production for TV – shops that create quality inexpensive series. maybe there should be a Sundance style festival for TV pilots – something that at least shows us some possibilities. There must be handful of filmmakers out there who can create series content with DNA from District 9, Blair Witch, etc.
X couldn’t be more right!
When the Internet and television finally become one, we’ll finally see independent television companies bounce back and FAIRLY compete with network owned programs. At that time, no one will care what network or online source a show comes from as long as its good. Don’t believe me? Does anyone really care what network airs “Mad Men?”
When TV and the internet actually merge will finally we see a steady stream of original shows (not one or two a season) whose budgets aren’t wasted on the overblown salaries and overhead of network television executives who spent most of their time trying to justify a reason they’re employed.
In their quest to see profits in the short run (translation: before they’ve been fired), network television executives have opted to make programming as cheaply as possible and ignore the fact that there hasn’t been a successful sit-com in syndication, besides the “King of Queens,” in years.
And why do most scripted shows seem so trite and tired? It could be because, in their quest to make a profit, the writing staffs have been reduced from the average of 12 – 16 in the early 1990′s to 6 to 8 in staffs today. Besides the lack of numbers, there is a complete lack of fresh writers moving up the ranks. In a way, it’s like pro baseball teams eliminating their farm teams and working their star players until they’re tired and no longer able to swing for the fences.
Nikki, what is with the NBC obsession? Frankly, the other networks’ programming decisions have been just as poor over the last few years, and yet you never once talk about those.
1. CBS is literally going to have their two NCIS shows back to back. Between that and the three CSI franchises, over HALF of their prime time scheduling are corpse procedural shows.
2. Quick, name three other Fox shows that aren’t American Idol. If you can name more than three, kindly point them out in the ratings.
3. ABC is crutching on three programs (Lost, DH, Grey’s) that are well past their prime in terms of creative vitality or even ratings.
4. CW? Please
My point is that one can find serious problems in every network’s programming philosophy, yet every day on DH is NBC, NBC, NBC…
Simpsons, Family Guy, House, 24. That’s four
The Simpson should have been cancel five years ago.Family Guy should have stay cancel.House is ok, and “24″ is one long running gag.
Interesting to note, House is actually produced by NBC Uni. heh
I hate to burst your little delusion of grandeur, but everything you just said is subjective and nothing more than your opinion stated (incorrectly) as fact. The Simpsons continues to be a ratings and financial success. Family Guy just became the first animated show in 50 years to receive a Comedy Series nomination. House has been nominated yet again for Best Drama Series and 24 is one of the most successful dramas on TV according to the ratings.
Family Guy and the Simpsons don’t really have great ratings these days. Being nominated for an Emmy really just means you’re the tallest midget in the room.
Of course Simpsons and Family Guy don;t have great ratings these days. They’re in repeats genius.
Because NBC these days is like a trainwreck. You can’t stop looking at the disaster that it’s become and remembering what it once was and how great it used to be. Zucker took an asset that was a strong #1 across all dayparts and drove it down to a miserable fourth. The only thing stopping NBC from falling entirely through the looking glass are the remnants of its glory days.
It’s just about the saddest thing out there in television right now.
Okay here is one great show that Fox has and that is “House”, Hugh Laurie, one of the greatest stars on TV. I can’t think of anything else to name but Fox isn’t the last runner up in the television game.
NBC is poorly run. As far back as not recognizing “Star Trek” was a show that would live for 40 years. No vision is a problem, I was sitting there when the first episode aired and when the new film came out my husband took me to see it the second week it was shown. It is hip, cool, and has all of the special effects that made the original ST sort of hokey or under appreciated by those NBC nuts. Then when George Lucus and Speilberg started Industrial Light and Magic and launched “Star Wars”. Paramount dusted off the Star Trek franchise it owned and started to make spin offs with special effects galore. That first Movie Sucked (not enough of interaction between the original crew….that was the magic of that first ST. But Paramount made millions and perhaps even billion on that clunker, but then they started to get better, Movies 2, 3 and 4 worked their way into the hearts of millions of Trekkers. The TV shows started again, a little different but close enough to that genius Gene Roddenberry’s view of our future and again Paramount made billions of money.
NBC doesn’t realize you don’t fix something that isn’t broke. They have to save a few bucks and put that Idiot Conan on to replace Jay. Jay was man enough to accept that the alligence NBC had to him wasn’t more important than the bottom line.
Jay might have some faults, but he is a talent that is under appreciated. So IF they undercut him to bill up that Redhead then I will be more than a little pissed.
I have a bone to pick with the bean counters too. These ratings experts (?) think that if you are over fifty you just don’t count in the people who watch TV shows. Lets give them a little boot in the head for that little screwed up logic. Those younger audience are busy living an active life, raising hell because this is their first time out from under Mom and Dad’s thumb, the yuppies are raising kids, what mom of several kids have time to spend any quality time before the TV. Now you take a older than 50 person, you will find that they have more free time, extra money for buying the products that the advertisers are trying to sell, but we don’t count. They have their heads up their respected asses as well. They are discriminating to the older generation. We aren’t all senile, we have some health problems sometimes but that keep us in our lounge chair with out feet up watching something good on network TV.
I am an example of that group of people, I have 3 tivos, 4 TVS, basic cable for the local channels, but I get my best programming off DirecTV. Once they offer the network channels, out the cable will go.
I get all my internet, phone and cable from Comcast. Bless their little pea picking hearts, for almost the entire year the government push the little black boxes that would get us HD TV on our older TVs. Not much more than a month, they call and say to us IF we want digital TV, we have to have a box on each outlet to see their wonderful digital TV. $25 buck a pop….IF this isn’t price gouging what is it. Since I do have a HD projection screen TV that is large and give us a beautiful picture. Better than any cable TV can. So with the 3 Tivos, I have a DVR that comes with DirecTV that does a fantastic job of recording programs on all the premium channels, plus all the learning channel especially the History and Animal channels.
The best TV of the summer came from TNT and TBS which are on my satellite. Look out network TV stations you are showing re-runs but we are watching lively interesting shows like “Burn Notice”, The Closer”, Dark Blue, Leverage and others that I can’t recall right now.
As a NFL Football fan I will be watching a local network game on one TV and any game being played anywhere on NFL Sunday Ticket, now for a super football fan that is the way to go.
Okay back to Leno…..you NBC execs give Jay you whole hearted backing. I have seen the advertising you have done but don’t put limits on who he can have as guest and who he can’t for they are for Conan alone.
The new shows lined up for fall might be interesting, I have hopes for at least two or three. Alex M. from moonlighting is coming back as a doctor, so you get a thumbs up for that. Moonlighting was cancel before you gave it a chance. Seems you have knocked off “Leverage” with you “White Collar” show, a nursing show called “Mercy” and a ER/EMS show called “Trauma”. So I will keep tuning in to Brian Williams for News, his coverage is good and can keep me coming back each night. My husband and I got hooked on “Meet the Press” on MSNBC but we get that on the satallite. Guess what MSNBC isn’t one of the cable shows that we get on cable. I know that they are part of the NBC network’s political wing. Those MTP shows with is new moderator David Gregory, filling those big shoes of Tim Russett. I knew when Tim spoke he was giving us the facts not colored by his own person beliefs. I think that David is doing it the same way, but sometimes they should give his a whistle (like the NFL Refs have, those politicians try to shout each other down and don’t take a breath to give David to get into the conversation.
So much for my soapbox….I gently step down and say to NBC there is a reason you are No. 4, so smarten up and try harder, use the rental car ad, say we aren’t the best but we try harder.
What I can’t believe is why the NBC affiliates aren’t raising holy hell about what a crappy lead-in this is going to be for their late night news, unless they have already given up on it privately and are planning to move their newscasts up an hour to replace Leno’s show before the end of the year. Regardless of whether they do that, I’d bet even money the Friday night version alone will be gone come January (expect something from the network like “We’ve found Jay’s show works best in the four-a-week version instead, as many of his fans are out away from TVs on Fridays”), followed by gradual attrition of other nights before this show is an embarrassing memory come next September. As could well be the NBC network, or at least Zucker as its leader, we can hope.
P.S. The Time author has guaranteed himself a spot as the laughingstock at the next meeting of TV critics.
They tried — at least one of them did. Earlier this year, Ed Ansin, head of WHDH in Boston loudly announced he wouldn’t clear the Leno show at 10, opting for an hour of news in its place. NBC told him that would be a violation of his affiliate agreement. Ansin didn’t budge at first, thinking NBC wouldn’t be short-sighted enough to pull its affiliation from a VHF station and flip one of its weak UHF Telemundo O&O’s to the Peacock. Then he found out, oops, they WOULD.
Seems he forgot about that hissy fit NBC threw when they were outbid for KRON in San Francisco and demanded huge reverse compensation. Young Broadcasting (the new owner) refused to go along, and NBC pulled the affiliation. They then sunk millions of dollars in to a marginal rim-shot station in San Jose, then spent millions more to upgrade the operation… and the signal. One wonders how much they would’ve saved — in dollars AND lost ratings — had they just swallowed some ego and settled the issues with KRON’s new owners. But no, NBC was ready to go on an ego trip and spend millions of dollars to get their way.
If several more major-market GM’s had objected on the record, maybe NBCU’s management would’ve blinked. Or maybe NBC would’ve followed ABC’s precedent with “NYPD Blue” and offered the Leno show to independents, Fox, CW or MYN stations looking for a stronger show in the 10/9c slot.
NBC’s tactics in the past have made the prospect of an affiliate revolt unlikely. But if the show tanks, you can expect a lot of grumbling and gnashing of teeth.
One other note — NBC has burned Ansin before over what they saw as too many preemptions, pulling the NBC affiliation from his WSVN in Miami after NBC bought a station there.
I think another question is what all this is going to do to Conan. He’s already struggling against Letterman, and I think that’s only going to get worse once Leno’s back on the network in an earlier time-slot. Jeff Zucker might want to go back to his spreadsheets and rethink just how profitable this idea is if it’s going to further destroy their late night profits.
I think having anyone watch will spur them to declare Jay Leno “The New King of Prime Time.”
The moment I heard about this I just started smelling turkey. A week-nightly variety show in this day and age is next to impossible to make a success. He might be able to pull off a weekly show, but not 5 nights a week.
Oh come on, Nikki… NBC shouldn’t be giving Jay and his production staff ideas. That’s the staff’s job, and they’re comedy professionals. Same with every other show on the air…
And you may be surprised by Jay’s ratings. Maybe he won’t get the young demographics, but after watching Conan and Dave duke it out for a while, I know I miss Jay’s funny monologues. And it’s not like network TV is packed with great shows at 10:00 anyway…
Ad revenue is a fake answer and the worst metric for NBCU to use on this show.
Leno’s new show is cheaper production-wise in the short run for ad revenue but loses profits in the long run for the network/studio.
Because:
There will be no syndication profits from the usual 10pm scripted network shows times five(x5).
There will be no international format sales profits from any of the usual five 10pm scripted network shows they would run.
There will be no DVD season sales profits from the usual 10pm scripted network shows.
Whether you develop mainstream hits or genre focused programming, these are very real LONG TERM profit centers for networks and studios (and actors, writers and producers). Look at Law & Order and West Wing etc.
There will be no real Emmy competition for NBC in the Drama area since this is the grown-up time slot where those shows usually run.
Here are the real questions:
Can Leno be funny 5 nights a week without the crutch of interviewing big TV stars from other networks?
Can the “cast” of comics he has assembled be funny 5 nights a week in any way shape or form? (The Ads for the show featuring old TONIGHT SHOW bits do not build confidence in this idea.)
Will the show weaken or strengthen the carryover of viewers into the 11pm nightly news slot and the TONIGHT SHOW?
BIGGEST QUESTION?
Will Jay Leno be able to deliver a FULL HOUR of prime time show that holds viewers OR will you be able to see the best parts (or just Best Joke) of every episode in a 60-second or less YouTube/Hula video online the next day?
Ad revenue is a fake answer and the worst metric for NBCU to use on this show.
Leno’s new show is cheaper production-wise in the short run for ad revenue but loses profits in the long run for the network/studio.
Because:
There will be no syndication profits from the usual 10pm scripted network shows times five(x5).
There will be no international format sales profits from any of the usual five 10pm scripted network shows they would run.
There will be no DVD season sales profits from the usual 10pm scripted network shows.
This is only true if their studio produces the show and since
they do not it is a phony argument.
No it’s an abandoned business model the whole industry yses.
If they abandon it when it works by choice that is their fault.
And if they are not the studio as you say then they are leaving money on the table at the expense of their shareholders.
Fred Silverman: “If the Leno Show works, it will be the most significant thing to happen in broadcast television in the last decade.” That’s one hellova statement, Fred. Meaningless and empty–kinda like NBC itself–but still, way to go out on a limb, Freddy.
If Leno’s 10 PM experiment fails? Umm… When Jay’s plan fails. And he’s right, no one will remember… But, that’s because nobody really gives a shit about Leno or his ability to be a real weasel. But, hey, Leno has always been about Leno, so he probably won’t notice that nobody really gives a damn about his “legacy.” What a douche bag.
Dear Jay,
You suck.
Sincerely,
Someone with a sense of humor.
Yes, because no one remembers Joey, After MASH and Woman of the House (ok maybe not the last one).
Jay deserves the best shot possible, pure and simple. He stands to change the face of network television if he is succesfful and take it alone if he is not. There are few entertainers that would be willing to take this risk. I like that TIME put his face on the cover. With all the crap that is called programming, he is offering alternative family entertaniment. Probably will not beat some great dramas, but certainly offer fun easy television viewing…Please hold off playing taps.
I think Jay is a fine guy and will do well in the ratings. Perhaps a little better than is being predicted. Whether those ratings will hold up is an interesting question. I don’t belive television is suffering as much as the so-called experts feel it is. People are watching TV… That’s why the average home has what? Two and a Half TVs… The problem is the NETWORKS. People are NOT watching only THREE main broadcast venues anymore… It’s now being split between 50 to a hundred channels at a given time. Same Pie… Smaller slices… The major broadcast companies all own more than one channel now. Look at Disney… ABC, ABC FAMILY, DISNEY, ESPN… etc…
The ability to obliterate the clock and schedule is changing the way folks view shows also. There are shows that I like which I haven’t hardly ever seen at their regular airtimes. That doesn’t mean I’m not watching… It also introduces a paradox. I would argue that a show Like THE PRACTICE and BOSTON LEGAL was killed by the scheduling of ABC… They moved that show around and preempted it all the time. After a while… it really got irritating for me as a viewer and fan of both shows… Poor David E. KELLY… It was like they were trying to kill him. I do believe that the NETWORKS need to understand and BRAND their time slots a little more than some of them have recently. It hurts shows to move them around constantly. Especially New shows…
Just a story. Years ago, I had a recurring role on MIAMI VICE…
The TV MOVIE (which I was not on…) had done very well, but we were losing in the ratings to DALLAS on Friday Nights initially… I remember a huge party held for the show in Miami, possibly at the Fountainbleau, where BRANDON TARTIKOFF, (GOD REST HIM)who was the head of NBC at the time, came and and said to us all… That NBC was going to stand behind the show. It did… once DALLAS went into reruns, which is always a drop for serialized shows, VICE began to pick up in the ratings and had a very successful run and also helped change the face of TV… I’m not sure if the economic structure now would even allow for that kind of GUTS from an executive… Now, if a show has low ratings in it’s first three or four airings… the Networks are often abandoning them…
Another problem is the system of PILOT development now… It’s terrible… You cannot tell how good a show is going to be by a short presentation. We see that all the time… It’s bringing us some of the worst sit-coms in the history of the medium… The executives who I guess are not creative people have missed the fact that most of the BIGGEST sitcom stars did not start out as STARS… It wasn’t STUNT CASTING that made hit shows… It great writing, unique vision and new interesting faces that made some of the major stars working today. The industry has also sacrificed a lot of talent and character for youth and beauty. The problem for scripted television is that youth and beauty are esily found in reality, where talent is not as required… (I’m not talking about a show like SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE or AMERICAN IDOL. You can’t fake your way through those…although Idol is more subjective)
Jay Leno is Perfect for NBC in Primetime right now. I wish him the best.
Raymond Forchion
Is it just me, or does the current state of broadcast television remind anyone else of the last years of radio drama, when no one could imagine a life without it?
You may be right.
The concept of Talking Pictures was laughed at.
TV was “Radio with pictures”.
Cable TV was going to be the end of feature film production.
Broadband streaming speed were sold as “TV on your computer”.
Media executives are usually neither visionary marketers nor early adopters in entertainment technology.
When it’s long proven to make money they start to do it.
Jay is right about no one remembering. Anyone remember
“After M*A*S*H*”? Didn’t think so.
You clearly remember AFTER MASH as do I.
Leno and I remember the Edsel.
The three of us shall remember it someday if Leno fails here too.
Don’t forget that After M*A*S*H ran for two seasons.
Even I remember that!
“The executives who I guess are not creative people have missed the fact that most of the BIGGEST sitcom stars did not start out as STARS… It wasn’t STUNT CASTING that made hit shows… It great writing, unique vision and new interesting faces that made some of the major stars working today. The industry has also sacrificed a lot of talent and character for youth and beauty. The problem for scripted television is that youth and beauty are esily found in reality, where talent is not as required…”
Exactly. This is why it is so hard for new actors to make it these days. Executives are scared and don’t have the balls to make a “risky” decision.
It’s like that old gambler’s saying, “scared money don’t win!”. That’s why the networks keep losing.
And yet, radio is still going strong. Maybe stronger than ever.
Radio is hardly “going strong”. Or did you miss the 3000 layoffs at Clear Channel? Even in markets where two or three monopolies own everything, there are a LOT of automated channels.
Ummm Mr. Silverman? There’s several others in the past decade. The DVR? Broadcasting putting their programs on the internet for free and selling them for $2-3 on iTunes? Sure Leno/10pm slot is big…. but it’s one piece of some major shifts over the past 10 years, heck 20 years in broadcast television.
Obvious Prediction: The broadcast networks as we know them now will not be the same in ten years, possibly sooner.
And yes, I call him Mr. Silverman, he deserves that. And I agree with the above poster about NBC, there ARE other networks!!!
Jerry, sure radio is still going strong, if you consider that the programming consists almost exclusively of playing music, talk, and news. It was once a huge center of dramatic storytelling, providing a lot of jobs for people, far more than radio can currently support. Those jobs left when the ad dollars left and went to TV. Some people were able to transition from radio drama to TV, some didn’t. And now the ad dollars are leaving TV.
Television networks were once the most efficient (not to mention only viable) method of distributing programming. And since that is no longer the case, what is to prevent ABC from going the way of the Dumont network?
Believe me, as someone who makes his living below the line, the last thing I want to see is an end to broadcast networks. And I hope Leno’s show fails. But the fact that NBC is going with it tells me that they believe that their bottom line will benefit from not playing a game that they can’t win. It’s just a short step from that to playing music under a slide show of advertisements, while you wait for the local news to start.
This is because NBC is run by GE which is built on mathematical equations, essentially, for success. They are crazy about quality control, insane about ISO management standards (also related to quality control), and even borderline personality disorder when it comes to controlling every aspect of their business (somewhat related and somewhat distant from quality control).
Case in point: I was stupid enough several years ago to call up GE and let them know that I was featuring (for free!) their Reveal light bulbs in a prominent TV news show and thought they would be excited to know. I thought I was chalking up points with them for a future relationship. To my surprise, I instead got no thank you. I got anger from the PR dept. that they would not allow Reveal to be mentioned as a new lighting solution unless they could control what was said on air. They got rather Nazi about it — actually really, unnecessarily Nazi even suggesting that if I didn’t allow them to control all my live TV mention then they would sue me. Suffice it to say, I was floored. I had made a courtesy call to get this attitude? But no fear. They weren’t featured. And I have never attempted to promote Reveal again.
You add shareholder pressure on top of all of this control fanaticness and you get Leno. They really want to treat their media and entertainment business like they do washers and lighting. They are only interested in R&D-ing it down to the what-is-the-profit-margin approach. There is no room for creativity and art at GE. Design for them is based on research, not art. Creativity is selected on research, not a risk. Hollywood is being mined for the niche market of margins and finding what entertainment will give them those margins with the MOST amount of CONTROL, least amount of risk, and most statistically verifiable “creation” (bankable stars + remake/repackage).
But what GE doesn’t understand, and never will, is that people won’t sustain entertainment based on statistics and research alone.
Instead, people like to be surprised, they like change, they like newness, they like to embrace quality, they like to see quality with longevity, they are intrigued by art, their tastes and interests are somewhat defined by hits and misses, they love stars, they like to see actors become stars, they like to escape through art, they like to learn about themselves and others through fictional stories, and they love to be entertained. No shareholder base or corporate monster can embrace all these audience needs by just programming for margins. And art/entertainment isn’t like washers and dryers — we want the same thing from our washers and dryers day in and day out, but not the same from our art/entertainment. Gee, that must keep those GE people up all night trying to figure that out. Eh?
Maybe NBC is forcing itself to be niche-NBC? If yes, what is your niche? Can you sustain all your costs at the national and local level by going niche? I’d say this is super risky. Super stupid. And really short sighted. You will lose market share so fast that when you do decide your legacy network is still worth saving and worth keeping the power you had, you’ll wish you had never copped out of development in hard times because you will be so far behind the competition and your advertisers will have graded you down so far that your budgets will hinder your network for years. I think the peacock has been defeathered. I think we should get PETA involved.
You are right about GE, they may do good work in some areas but entertainment isn’t by any means their forte. Those 3 way Reveal bulbs are crap, you no longer get it plugged into your 3 way light source (computer desk lamp) and the lower setting quits, just plain doesn’t work.
Now Brian Williams and the NBC news staff is a bring spot in a sort of wasteland of entertainment. I like news reported concise and accurate. I don’t want commentary on the news I want facts.
Brain and his entire staff of people around the globe do a good job. He is a likeable man, well groomed to take over once their other gold standard of new Tom B. took a less active role. Poor Lester Holt, he must feel like a gerble on a wheel, first the today’s show, then the evening news on the weekend and sometime to fill in for Brain.
Okay back to the subject of entertainment. For my almost 66 years I have seen shows come and go. Some having a good run, so cancel before they hit their stride. Letting Conan have the Tonight Show and pushing Jay out was a error of world shaking perportion. Why not give old tall, red the boot, pay the agreed 5 or 6 millions and kept Jay where people who watch late night TV expect him to be. Coming out greeting the fans and starting off his monologue. He and Kevin had a great rapor, Kevin was a good straight man for Jay jokes as well as Mendez.
IF this move to 10 PM (9:00 PM CST) fails it will because the “powers that be” are tying his hands behind his back. He is a good man. I like his jokes, I like his comments on the news of the day…..not the most exciting to be sure but he was comfortable with the audience in the studio and out in living room around the counties. He saw most of those young star grow up right before his eyes, he has a good rapor with the A- to d- lister stars. He is easy going, decent and even though he has his dislexia problem, reading off the teleprompter or card didn’t appeal to me. I am a bit dislexic with transpossing letter and numbers. The biggest thing that made me notice his eyes reading off a teleprompter was watching CRAIG FERGUSON style of doing his monologue. He look over at his producer sometimes when he has been a bad boy and said something sensors don’t want him to say but he works from simple bullet points. I discovered him during 2005 during the holiday season. The accent made me stop, the jokes made me pause and my female hormones made me pay attention. I have children his age but the man has all it takes to be a hit given he has a walkin in closet size studio with a leaky roof. There are women my age who hang on his every word and facial expression. Some of the skits are hokey, but all in all you wonder where the time went when the show it over.
But again Jay Leno is an institution…..where ever he appears or when. Give the man a chance to give it his all, work out of the box and keep those stupid college kids OFF the air. We don’t need to advertise to the world there are young people who have graduated college are in college that could not answer the questions on “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?” I don’t find it funny to see the youth of tomorrow going up to Pass the FCAT and not getting a well balanced education from grammer school to college.
Keep Kevin and the band on and don’t limit his guest choices, Let him book those stars who want to be on with him rather than that silly redhead.
So GE find some balls for your entertainment department, minds with original ideas and give good shows a chance to suceed rather than cut them off without a how-you-do. Don’t gut Leno’s show so that you precious “giant redhead” can suceed, IF he doesn’t have the chops fire his ass and let some other network pick up the loser. Leno’s is comfortable….dependable and has a way with his guests. IF you are taking votes, I hate Obama, but love Leno and my husband feels the same way.
M/M, what is this comment doing here? Your posts are boring now and have always been boring. You drove off everyone from invisionfree. Do us all a favor and stop commenting on ANYTHING. We don’t care what you think of Obama or anything else.
Back on topic. I am completely and utterly indifferent to The Jay Leno Show but I must say I do enjoy the spinning and manipulating and projecting about it. It’s also fun to watch NBC implode. Thanks, Nikki.
I think this is a very insightful analysis. It also occurs to me that reading these articles and comments, from such thoughtful and articulate sources, is really a lot better than reading Time magazine or watching the nightly news. Hello, new medium.
i have no problem with jay leno personally. he seems like a nice guy.
but i cannot, for the life of me, understand how anyone in their right mind could find jay talking to morons on the street funny. it’s a bit that feels like 10 years beyond its expiration date. my god. it also looks and feels absolutely set up. so when i see promos for his new prime time show and they show him making jokes about stupid newspaper ads and asking idiots to spell Afghanistan i just want to be ill. WHO thinks this is funny?
it’s pathetic.
Fred Silverman was one of the greats of Network television. He’s in the right here. Instead of arguing about Leno taking 5 hours of primetime, which is replacing Crap that can be seen on the other three networks, focus on getting the great drama’s on cable where they are appreciated and can be made without sacrificing creativity to the lowest common denominator. If I was a WGA’er, that’s where my focus would be. At least you could be proud of the end result.
NBC has been out of the quality business for years.
If you were a WGA’er you would not be working network prime time.
That’s time best reserved for reality TV and game shows.
No need for WGA there obviously.
Anyone talking about Jay putting about a thousand people out of work? Just a guess on my part but five hour long shows with about 200 people working on each of them in various ways… I can hardly wait to heckle this egomaniac when he visits my neighborhood to do his lame interviews.
Fred Silverman is what, 80 now? Close to it? He’s Leno’s demo. Same with Raymond above. I don’t see anyone under 50 saying they’re looking forward to the show.
Nikki, I have to admit to being a little confused. You’re ripping NBC for not giving Leno any ideas about his show and yet you regularly rip network execs for trying to tinker with shows by giving them ideas.
Seriously, which is it?
In this case, Nikki’s underscoring how NBC seemingly has no idea what to do with The Jay Leno Show. They don’t know what will be a successful number, they don’t know what they want to do with the show, what function it serves beyond the “margin management,” and even the suits, notorious for tinkering and giving notes have none. Ordinarily, this might be seen as a good thing, but I think since many perceive that NBC is counting on the show to be a “hit,” that the absence of any tinkering is suspicious in this case.
I don’t think it’s a clear black and white thing… that Nikki must always champion x and slam y. That’s just boring.
If Leno fails, NBC will definitely not return to dramas at 10:00 p.m. I suspect they’ll just put in more Datelines and reality shows. NBC is through spending millions on new dramas; even if it means they’ll have to get by with fewer viewer. That’s why I believe they will leave Leno there as long as possible.
True that. . .