Can Jay Leno succeed in primetime? An advertising agency offers its answer

Advertising agency Rubin Postaer & Associates has weighed in on Jay Leno's motoring to prime time. Noting the sundry pluses this represents for NBC, it adds some major caveats:

"Through the week before Thanksgiving, compared to NBC's current Monday through Friday, 10 to 11 p.m. lineup (warts and all), Leno, on average, is delivering half the lineup's rating points among major adult demographics. ...

"Even assuming Leno does better in primetime than in late night, he will need to grow his major adult audiences by 50% just to equal what the network now delivers to its local affiliates as a lead-in to their newscasts."

Yeah, that 18-49 demographic is going to be a bitch for Jay and NBC, the network that introduced that very concept. As Syracuse TV professor Bob Thompson told me today, "My students would sooner be tied to railroad tracks than watch an episode of Leno."

Rubin Postaer notes that only Steve Allen successfully transitioned from late-night to primetime, back in the '50s (of course, "successfully" has a different standard nowadays), and add, "Since the advent of VCRs, and now with DVRs, virtually anyone so equipped can time-shift Leno for more convenient viewing, so it's difficult to see where the growth in his audience might come from."

And they think the unthinkable (for NBC): "(W)hat if Leno flops in primetime? And/or the affiliates, already in tough shape in the current economy, rebel over the lower lead-in?"

Given how low that bar has been set at NBC, the notion of Leno tanking may be a tough sell, but it's possible: Certainly, given how ubiquitous he'll be on the schedule, the show won't exactly be considered (as NBC once, long ago, dubbed itself) "Must-See TV." And Jay's going to have significantly tougher competition at 10 p.m. - he's not going to be up against other talk shows and reruns and infomercials.

If Leno and NBC's primetime experiment does fail spectacularly, the network is going to be in for a world of hurt - given that they ceded so much primetime territory to Jay, they'll not have developed as much programming and therefore will have little, if anything, with which to replace his show.

As for the affiliate question, we noted last year that NBC Universal head Jeff Zucker gave a speech in which, while discussing the way viewers will see NBC's shows, neglected to mention: on TV, on the network's affiliates. Cable networks don't have to worry about pleasing local affiliates, and it seemed that that was the model Zucker may have been envisioning when he gave the speech.

Unfortunately, affiliates see it far differently - the 11 p.m. newscast is one of their most profitable programs, earning them among their highest ad rates. If Leno's show hurts their 11 p.m. ratings and there's widespread affiliate backlash - if some crunch the numbers and discover they could make more money as independent stations, say, which in a cable universe could occur - there could be, as Rubin Postaer puts it, "a hefty price to pay to avoid the potential embarrassment of having prematurely forced Leno out."