Shouldn’t cancelled mean CANCELLED?
So, the big TV news is the rumor of the Jay Leno show being cancelled and Jay being moved back to his 11:30 p.m. time slot. Call me crazy, but if you’re cancelled, doesn’t that mean you don’t get to be on the air anymore? That’s how it is in my books.
The Leno show is pulling weak ratings, which in turn isn’t leading enough people into local affiliates’ nightly news program. This is bad for the afilliates because it makes it harder for them to bring lucrative local advertising dollars in during that time slot. The affiliates are rightly upset by Leno’s poor performance in the lead-in slot.
Conan’s ratings haven’t been too great either, but in my opinion not because his show sucks. Far from it. He’s just caught in the wake of poor retention that the Leno show is causing when viewers abandon that slot come 10 p.m.
So, if Leno is the big, rotted carcass in the equation, why give him his old, coveted time slot back?
On the drive in to work this morning, Robin suggested that it’s because Leno is perceived to be a much stronger brand association with NBC and late night programming. Sure, I can buy that, but this whole failed exercise in primetime programming should only serve to prove that Leno has become an irrelevant part of the NBC late night brand and should just be phased out.
We never watched the 11:30 p.m. time slot when Leno was on. We always watch it now that Conan is on. In fact, we even watch the 10:00 p.m. Leno show most nights (although we rarely enjoy all of it), which is something I never expected to happen.
Jay made a joke to Kevin last night about the Fox Network being rather lovely this time of year. I’m not saying Leno needs to leave TV entirely. I’m just saying maybe there’s something to the idea he threw out there. It’s time to move on and not skunk up the already weirdly cluttered NBC late night line-up.