Broadcast TV has had plenty of issues over the years, from media fragmentation to the Internet to DVRs, but when NBC announced last December that Jay Leno (after getting replaced from his own show with Conan O’Brien) would get his own show – again – five nights a week during prime time, the media world had a lot of questions.
Was it simply a way to tie up Jay Leno and keep him from going elsewhere (ABC was rumored to be looking to moving him to late night)? Or was it a cost-cutting effort to alleviate the network from previous lackluster 10 p.m. programs? Time magazine declared that, “Jay Leno is the future of TV – seriously.”
The decision to forgo scripted drama and all the costs that come with it (writers, actors, producers) was essentially a white flag from the network. NBC is telling the world that they don’t want to even try to produce original programming – it costs too much; they just want to get by. TV shows with expectations set so low that if a scripted drama earned them, they would be cancelled. This is now considered acceptable by the new standards.
What the network didn’t seem to consider is the systemic bleeding occurring from that one program. According to mediabuyerplanner.com, NBC has lost 1.82 million (or 49%) of their adults 18-49 audience at 10 p.m. so far this season. Law & Order, which was a time-slot winner last year at 10 p.m., now comes in last place at 9 p.m. NBC clearly underestimated the halo effect that this kind of programming would have at the 10pm time period.
Gannett, who owns six NBC affiliates throughout the country, saw their stock downgraded due to concerns that broadcast advertising revenue will slow. This is due mainly to the time slot of The Jay Leno Show, which precedes news programming. Local news ratings traditionally live and die by their lead-in program. With the audience Leno is pulling in, affiliates too are worried about their local news ad rates. Instead of being the “future of TV” and Time-magazine announced, recent headlines have said quite the opposite: The Jay Leno Show Is Taking NBC Down – Yahoo! TV; “Is It Time to Pull the Plug on Leno?” – ABC News; and “Is Leno’s 10 p.m. experiment nearing an end?” – MSNBC.
Leno’s show is undergoing some revamping and retooling, moving headlines to the beginning of the program and essentially making it more like the old Tonight Show. The question is, how long will NBC hang on to this programming model? Saving money on programming is one thing, but what is the cost to the NBC brand?
