Thursday, January 7, 2010

Late Breaking Late Shifting

So now Bill Carter says the plan (not yet official) would be to move Leno to 11:35 in a half-hour, start O'Brien at 12:05 and then, it says, Jimmy Fallon's show would commence at 1:05. You know, that ain't a bad solution to a bad problem and it could easily lead to a couple of quick fixes. If Leno's numbers are good, it wouldn't be that big a deal to expand his show to an hour and put Conan back to 12:35. Or if Jay does poorly there, he goes away and Conan goes back to 11:35. I assume the Conan hour would still be called The Tonight Show and this allows a certain amount of face-saving. Conan would still be the host of The Tonight Show.

The overlap might help Jimmy Fallon. People who watch Conan would be disinclined to switch over to Craig Ferguson in mid-show. On the other hand, unless his ratings are grand, Fallon's show may be viewed as too costly to run that late.

My initial reaction is that this would not be a long-term solution. Jay's show will seem unsatisfying at that length...a monologue, a comedy bit and one guest? On the other hand, all 11:35 late night shows have always had a tune-out problem after the first half hour. People think the good part of the show is done so it's time to go to bed. Maybe now instead of hitting the sack, they'll say, "Let's wait and see who Conan has on."

However it works, it'll probably be better than what they have now.

• Posted at 5:29 PM · LINK

Another Update

Bill Carter of the New York Times has apparently confirmed that NBC is in discussions with Mssrs. Leno and O'Brien about the future of their two shows. It does not bode well for Mr. O'Brien that the network is conceding that giving 11:35 back to Jay is even on the table.

One thing to keep in mind here: It's easy for us (you and me, babe) to sit here from afar and play Armchair Network Exec. We can say we'd stick Jay in this time slot or Conan in that one. We're unencumbered by the answers to real questions including, "What do Jay and Conan and even Jimmy Fallon have in their respective contracts?" We also don't know how many potential 10:00 pilots the network has, how good they are, how long it would take to get some of them into production, etc. Nor do we know if any key affiliates have made time-sensitive threats — i.e., "Get Leno back at 11:35 by April or else." Things like that.

But the fact that NBC has put out a couple of statements supporting Leno and none (so far) saying how happy they are with Conan O'Brien at 11:35 tells you the direction this thing is drifting. Obviously, there are big questions. Do they already have a pre-negotiated deal with Jay to go back into that time slot? If not, what would it take, not only in terms of money but long-term guarantee? If I were Jay, I'd demand not only a lot of cash but something akin to a lifetime contract, perhaps with certain performance quotas. In other words, as long as his ratings stayed above X, they couldn't boot him off again. Then you get to the question of what kind of penalty money do they pay O'Brien if he loses that gig and would he even want to go back to 12:35? And if so, what would that cost? And what about Fallon? And which show would be The Tonight Show? And...

And aren't you glad you aren't Jeff Zucker, dealing with all this today? Any sort of move at this point would be an admission that his initial decision, the one that moved Jay to 10 PM and Conan to 11:35, was a colossal mistake. Now, he has to make another move that won't look like piling one bad decision on top of another. The TV business loves to watch when a top executive is squirming and dealing with disasters of his own making. For some, this is going to be more entertaining than anything that's ever been on NBC late night, up to and including Ed Ames and his tomahawk. In a way, it's kind of the same act.

• Posted at 3:22 PM · LINK

Update

And TMZ, the gossip website that gets about half of everything wrong, is claiming that Leno is being moved back to 11:35...with no word on what will become of Conan O'Brien or whether what Jay would do in that slot would be called The Tonight Show.

There may be some truth in today's rush of rumors but I'm still waiting to hear some specifics before I believe anything's changing right now. Like, if it's so, how does NBC intend to fill that gaping hole in their prime-time schedule?

• Posted at 2:23 PM · LINK

Word on the Street

Unnamed sources are saying that NBC has made or is about to make the decision to cancel The Jay Leno Show. It would not come as a great surprise that this was under discussion, as the show has generally not reached even the modest definition of success that was originally laid down. It would be more of a surprise if they had something promising to replace it with or that they'd cancel Jay before they did.

I am always a bit wary of rumors from within any network. Many years ago, I was in a meeting with Fred Silverman. This was back when he was running NBC. The topic was a Saturday morning show with which I was to be involved and in the conversation, someone asked about our time slot, and would we have a certain other show as our lead-in? Fred said, "Don't worry about that show. It's a piece of crap and I'm cancelling it." Well, that's a pretty good "source," right? I mean, Fred was the guy who cancelled shows at NBC.

That very evening, a friend of mine who worked on that show called and said, "Hey, I have an offer to go do another series for CBS but I think we're going to get picked up so I'm turning it down." Naturally, I told my friend what Mr. Silverman had said. Naturally, he thanked me and took the offer for the CBS show. And unnaturally, a week or so later, Fred renewed the show he'd said he was going to cancel. I think my friend still believes I lied to him or at least misunderstood. Anyway, I always keep that in mind when I hear a rumor out of any network, especially one with no source attached.

For what little it may be worth, what I've been hearing out of the Leno program for the last month or so was that they were trying to fix it, trying to launch "The Jay Leno Show 2.0," as one person put it with new segments, new correspondents, etc. But apart from a minor tweak of the opening, I haven't seen anything change. Admittedly, I haven't been watching much. I'm still a fan of Mr. Leno but most nights, I find myself bailing after the monologue or sometimes the first bit, if I even watch at all. The program just has a cheap, "forced" feel to it and even elements that worked well on his Tonight Show seem strained to me. The Green Car Challenge especially feels like they know it's a bore but they spent all that money building the raceway so they feel they have to use it.

The earlier rumor out of the network was that they were going to cut Jay back to three nights a week and drop in two hours of Dateline NBC. That hasn't happened either, probably because it's not a solution to their problem...just a way of making Leno's show cost more per night.

Jay's numbers were actually up a bit last month, probably because he was against a lot of reruns or otherwise weak competition. Still, the underlying premise of the experiment — that it could still be profitable in that hour and not hurt affiliates' local news — remains unproven and likely to remain that way. My guess is that if there's anything to the current rumors, it's that the network has decided they'll never prove it and they're quietly asking suppliers to pitch shows that can run at 10 PM. If that's the case, it won't stay quiet for long.

• Posted at 1:51 PM · LINK

Today's Video Link

So I've been sitting here all evening wondering what would have happened if instead of writing the score for Company, Stephen Sondheim had penned the tunes for Bye Bye Birdie. And by an amazing coincidence, I found a YouTube video that answers my question. What are the odds?

• Posted at 12:05 AM · LINK