Along with the rest of the 10pm hour, five nights a week.
NBC's Jeff Zucker didn't keep people waiting too long yesterday after musing about not being able to develop so many prime time hours in the future. According to the New York Times' Bill Carter, when Jay hands over the Tonight Show to Conan in 2009, Jay will move to 10 o'clock, five nights a week.
The new show, which will begin next fall, is expected to be set in Mr. Leno’s longtime studio in Burbank, Calif. Mr. Leno is expected to retain many of the most popular elements of his “Tonight Show,” including his monologue and bits like “Headlines” and “Jay Walking.” One “Tonight Show” staffmember said the new program would not be a variety show.
Mr. O’Brien, currently the host of NBC’s “Late Night,” will move “The Tonight Show” to a new studio on the NBC Universal lot in Universal City, Calif., in May. Mr. Leno, who is known to want to work as much as possible, would then miss only three months on the air, and would use that time to prepare his new show.
An executive involved in the discussions with Mr. Leno said that Mr. Leno finally came around to the idea that the television business had changed and a show like his could be a success in prime time.
Running the same show in prime time five nights a week would be a novelty for a broadcast network. Such so-called stripped shows have been a staple of daytime broadcasting.
FOX has never programmed 10'o'clock, and that's left NBC feeling jealous. Nobody programs Saturday anymore with original stuff. But what does this do to the business? Who knows?
You could argue that it's a game changer; that aging baby boomers will welcome being able to watch a show like Jay's in prime time before the news and their new earlier bedtimes. Sure, it cannibalizes Tonight Show for guests and screws Conan on the promise they made him, but hey, at least it keeps Jay from going to ABC!
To be honest with you, ceding the 10 o'clock hour seems like a terrible idea to me. I know plenty of, say, young parents who find that slot the only time they can watch tv after the kids are finally to bed and stuff's cleaned up. So you're ceding that young audience right there. I will never, ever, ever watch Jay, so that means you've lost me at 10'o'clock, forever -- or at least as long as this bizarre experiment lasts.
To be honest, it sounds a lot like one of Zucker's more famous treading water gimmicks from the 90's -- "supersizing" hit shows to 40 minutes each instead of developing fresh new product to replace them.
But then again, as the Times points out:
There have been no new hits at 10 p.m. on any network in almost four years; ratings for shows in that time slot continue to fall.
It's definitely a bold change. You have to wonder what the Canadian networks will do with one less source for 10pm shows to cadge. And what does that mean for content, now? Does the edgy stuff that used to run at 10 move to 9 with SVU and CSI: Miami? Does Drama take a hit?
Fifteen million a week for 5 10pm dramas vs. 2 Million a week for Leno. That's quite a cost difference.
Unless it hastens the flight of drama viewers to, say, Cable. There's an opportunity there, too. Especially considering somebody like me, who never really has embraced the stodgy CBS drama -- well, that means now if there's nothing on ABC, am I watching what? Baseball? The News on CBC? Cable? DVD?
The CBC News at 10 suddenly looks like a smart alternative where it never did before. What do you know?
Nikki Finke has more about the Jay-move here.
5 comments:
That's five more hours of prime time air gone to the dark side. Does this reek of "reality craze" redux? What does Zucker know about the fragmenting market that nobody else does? Maybe he's just reading the credit crisis tea leaves. If I'm in any way a typical viewer, when I am home at 10:00, I never watch over the air television (save for Mansbridge). As a rule for me it's PVR eps of Stewart and Colbert. So maybe Zucker's on to something, after all when the ipod/Napster generation took hold how many radio outlets went all talk or all shock?
Yeah...this is a biggie. It's bad enough that reality/gameshows continue to get made, and Saturday's and even Friday nights are mostly repeats, but I can now see a variation of Nightline airing every night at 10 on ABC. And CBS doing mashups of all it's CSI's, Criminal Minds, Without A Trace's and running them every night at 10 as 'counter programming'.
The game is has changed...the major networks advertising dollar upfront model of financing is still being clung to but is seeing its last gasps. Cheaper cable net drama has become what the syndication marketplace used to be. We are entering a 'period of transition' for network comedy/drama. To what exactly still remains to be seen.
Here's my own personal Jaywalking story ... I got nabbed in Universal City Walk about five years ago and after two questions Leno looked at me and said, "Aw hell, you're Canadian, aren't you?" I said, "What makes you say that?" His sincere, and endearing reply? "You're too smart, that's why." Needless to say, I got cut.
I don't see cable drama as "cheaper". I don't think Mad Men is cheap. I don't think Dexter is cheap. And I know that The Tudors is not cheap. I think what's changed is the audience. The audience for network TV is boomers. And no matter what the networks do, they can't attract the younger demographic they and their advertisers want. The cablers don't worry about that because people pay to get them. So it's OK to have boomers who finance HBO, Showtime, etc. They get millions of dollars in subscriptions to make programming for their subscribers.
So, the networks are going to be looking for deals - NBC has even said as much. Hence their willingness to take British or Canadian or Australian shows. We're easier because our accent (at least in Central Canada) is equivalent to that of much of the U.S.
So, the Tudors is suddenly a Canadian co-production - although it is a Showtime show. And Crusoe is suddenly a Canadian co-production. The beauty of the Crusoe deal is that NBC got it for acquisition money - the bulk of the money being fronted by UK and Canada. And NBC doesn't even care that the numbers on the show are tanking. It didn't cost the anything. As one CAA agent put it, "spending their way to the bottom".
The deal that worked best is "Flashpoint". A cop show that translated well to CBS which also paid acquisition money for the Canadian fully-financed production.
We'll see if we are still able to do that after the next federal budget and after the dust settles on some of our prod cos and broadcasters - like Canwest Global which has lost 95% of its value and owes billions of dollars to Goldman Sachs.
I've decided not to think about it. Let it sort itself out. I am deep into mapping out a fantasy novel.
Most dramatic programming has secondary markets -- repeats, syndication, foreign and DVD that all deliver significant revenue streams over time.
But NBC is giving all of that away for a cheaper show that will only deliver immediate cash and may cannibalize the audience for Conan and whoever follows him.
This is therefore a desperation move which, when combined with their recent acquisitions of cheap shows from other English speaking countries, is an admission that the network can no longer either finance or develop its own programming.
NBC is done. I wonder who's next.
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