On Leno, NBC and the future of television

This'll be in tomorrow's paper:

When Bob Thompson, founding director of Syracuse University's Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture, heard that NBC was moving Jay Leno to prime time next season, he had two immediate responses.

"My first thought was, what an incredibly clever idea - it solves about nine problems for NBC," says Thompson. "My second thought was: This is a really, really bad day in the history of television."

In announcing that Leno will host a program very similar to his current "Tonight Show," only in the 10 p.m. hour of primetime beginning next fall, NBC resolved the quandary of what to do with its longtime host once Conan O'Brien takes over "Tonight" in June 2009. O'Brien had been promised the position five years ago in contract negotiations that kept him with NBC, but Leno's enduring popularity had executives worried that he would go to ABC or Fox and crush O'Brien in the ratings.

Moreover, NBC has suffered slumping primetime ratings for years, and has been looking for ways to cut costs. Leno's show is far less expensive to produce than an hour of scripted programming, and with it now responsible for nearly a quarter of NBC's primetime schedule, the network can focus on developing and producing fewer programs and cherry-pick the highest quality projects.

"If NBC was in better shape, I'd say they were out of their minds," Mediaweek ratings analyst Marc Berman says. "But they have so many holes and so many weaknesses that it's not such a terrible idea. It's risky, but maybe it's a risk worth taking."

For his part, Leno is happy to stay with his longtime employer after spending the past five years mulling life after NBC.

"Yeah, I could've gone other places," Leno said at a press conference Tuesday morning. "But I tend to leave the dance with the person I came with. I'm still on my first wife."

Because the show is so inexpensive to produce (outside of Leno's hefty salary, expected to be about $40 million), it won't need - nor should it expect - blockbuster ratings. On the other hand, 10 p.m. shows drive viewers into local newscasts, which are hugely profitable for local affiliates. Outside of "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," NBC has had precious few solid performers in the 10 p.m. hour in recent years. Local affiliates may wish for a stronger lead-in for their 11 p.m. newscasts, but may be happy that NBC seems to have found a way to stanch its hemorrhaging ratings.

Mediaweek's Berman estimates that the show will draw between 6.5 and 10 million viewers an evening, the high end of which would be a big hit by NBC's currently anemic standards. But, he adds, "It's a show that will skew older. It's not going to get the viewers between the ages of 18 and 49 that they look for. NBC was the first network to say, 'We're not interested in viewers, we're interested in demographics.' They're going to have to change their tune real quick." Berman estimates that between two and three million viewers a night will lie within the 18-to-49 demo.

Berman believes the move offers savvy counter-programming to the dramas ABC and CBS will air at 10 p.m. "It it's 10 o'clock and you don't want to commit to drama, you don't want to put your thinking cap on, you have the choice of Jay Leno doing what he does best," he says.

But it certainly represents a major sea change among the major broadcast networks, a signal of retreat to Thompson's mind.

"Think back over the last 25 years what has played at 10 p.m. on NBC - 'Hill Street Blues,' 'West Wing,' 'Law & Order,' 'St. Elsewhere,' 'ER' - some of the best television, and shows of a quality that stimulated HBO's renaissance," Thompson says. "They're sending a signal about their commitment to quality adult drama. What this announces is, 'We're making a concerted effort to get out of this business.'"