Leno Back to 11:30

[Chordata]

Leno is a joke. I feel bad for Conan.

[stakeraiser]

Yeah, I'll just stick with Craig Ferguson, so.. yeah

[mikejet]

Originally Posted by stakeraiser

Yeah, I'll just stick with Craig Ferguson, so.. yeah

Craig is good. So much better than the limited range they gave him on The Drew Carey Show.

[Diesel]

The Final Price of the Jay Leno Shuffle: Over $200 Million

The LATimes has an interesting piece today chronicling the rise and fall of TV executive Jeff Zucker. Just over half a year ago, Zucker’s decision to move Leno into the 10 p.m. slot on NBC was widely regarded as one of the biggest TV bets we’d ever seen. But while Leno might have technically been profitable, NBC clearly failed to take into account their entire TV ecosystem, as Leno completely decimated the ratings of local affiliates. In fact, my local NBC affiliate, WHDH in Boston, almost refused to air Leno outright, but was eventually cowed into submission. Unfortunately, it now looks like they would have been better off striking out on their own.

With rumors that NBC’s entire prime time lineup will be reshuffled, the cost of the entire Leno debacle might end up being quite high. According to the LATimes, “Some veteran TV executives believe the Leno imbroglio could ultimately cost more than $200 million, including the damage inflicted on stations’ local newscasts, their ad rates and NBC programs, such as ‘Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,’ which lost millions of viewers when its time period was changed. They predicted that it could take years for NBC to rebuild.” (emphasis added) Consider the $200 million number a back-of-the-envelope guess, but I don’t have any problem believing that this whole experiment has been nothing short of a financial disaster.

Video of Conan's monologue in the link.

[Jellybeans]

Originally Posted by O_V_N

Leno is a joke. I feel bad for Conan.

Couldn't agree more!

[DetroitSportsFan]

Originally Posted by O_V_N

Leno is a joke. I feel bad for Conan.

Conan getting beat by Letterman nightly is no joke to NBC execs.

[recS-12]

I work nights. Am I really missing anything?

[Blu-Dog]

Originally Posted by recS-12

I work nights. Am I really missing anything?

Maybe some slee. I can't figure out why anybody would watch these late-night snoozers...

[blu2]

Originally Posted by Diesel

Leno is pissed because they want to cut him down to a 30 minute show, not because Conan still has the Tonight Show title.

At this point I don't see why Leno would even want to crawl back to late night. It's really time for him to move on to something altogether new.

[Mike53421]

Kimmel on the situation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6I4LJVsrX0

[toef]

Originally Posted by blu2

At this point I don't see why Leno would even want to crawl back to late night. It's really time for him to move on to something altogether new.

Says who? You?

If he wants to do it, let him try to do it. It's clear he is a bigger draw than Conan, even though you'd get a different opinion reading this thread.

The fact is The Tonight Show's ratings have dropped over 50% since Conan took over, and are the lowest they've been in over 15 years. That's not exactly good.

Sure, Leno's early ratings after taking over from Carson were pretty bad too, but the difference is Carson wanted to retire, and left on his own terms. Years ago NBC was worried about losing Conan, since Fox was interested in starting an 11:30 talk show and sought out Conan as the host. As part of NBC's deal to keep him, they promised Conan that he'd take over The Tonight Show in 2009. Jay kind of had to just accept that.

[Indaface]

heard Conan alias mr 3000 might move his future to FOX.

[Mahatma]

I like Conan!Maybe it's not the right format for him?

[McGarnigal]

The older demographics havent even begun to embrace Conan, but love Leno and that won't change for a long time

[pBLU-RAYs3]

Originally Posted by Rblu-Dblu

Who?

Lmao, now we know who has to go to bed early. Don't forget to brush your teeth and pick out your favorite bed-time story.

[blu2]

NBC Confirms Leno leaving primetime:

http://hollywoodinsider.ew.com/2010/...ing-primetime/

NBC Chairman Jeff Gaspin kicked off his network’s portion of the TCA press tour by confirming the worst kept secret in the TV biz: “I can confirm, starting Feb. 12, The Jay Leno Show will no longer air at 10 p.m.”

Gaspin said that, “While [Leno] was performing at acceptable levels for the network, it did not meet our affiliates’ needs, and we realized we had to make a change. My goal right now is to keep Jay, Conan [O'Brien], and Jimmy [Fallon] as part of our late-night lineup. I have spoken to all of them and proposed that The Jay Leno Show move to 11:35, The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien to 12:05, and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon would then start at 1:05.

“As much as I’d like to tell you we have a done deal, that’s not true,” he added. “The talks are ongoing. [But] I hope and expect, before the Olympics begin, we will have everything set. I can’t imagine we won’t.”

[recS-12]

Conan, Go to FOX. just do it.

[Original-6ix]

Leno is a hack and whats up with rewarding complete failure? this robots show decimated affiliates lead in to there news and nbc goes ahead and gives him his old timeslot and screws over conan, i just hope his audience has moved on and he is gone in another 6 months but it probably will come back because america loves cheese and leno is the king of it.

[toef]

Originally Posted by Original-6ix

Leno is a hack and whats up with rewarding complete failure? this robots show decimated affiliates lead in to there news and nbc goes ahead and gives him his old timeslot and screws over conan, i just hope his audience has moved on and he is gone in another 6 months but it probably will come back because america loves cheese and leno is the king of it.

If Leno's ratings make him a complete failure, what do Conan's ratings make Conan?

[nathanp]

Didn't watch Leno at 11:30, didn't watch Leno at 10:30 and won't watch Leno at 11:30 this time either. I hope Conan finds a way to opt out of his contract and head to Fox, a network that actually has some idea of what comedy is.