WWTBAM Bored

It seems pretty desperate for NBC to drop five hours of traditional prime time programming every week.

SportsFan68 wrote:Where Is Leno Going? To Prime Time, on NBC

By BILL CARTER
Published: December 8, 2008
NBC will keep Jay Leno five nights a week, but in prime time, competing not with David Letterman, but with shows like “CSI: Miami.”

The network will announce Tuesday that Mr. Leno’s new show will appear at 10 o’clock each weeknight in a format similar to “The Tonight Show,” which he has hosted since 1993.

Five years ago NBC announced that it would hand the job of host of that franchise show to Conan O’Brien in May 2009. Since then the network has maneuvered to try to keep Mr. Leno, who continues to be the late-night ratings leader, fearing that he could leave and start a new late-night show on a competitor’s network. “The Tonight Show” is seen at 11:35 weeknights.

Mr. Leno, 58, was known to have suitors, including ABC, the Fox network and the Sony television studio. But he was apparently persuaded to stay at NBC after aggressive personal wooing by Jeff Zucker, the chief executive of NBC Universal, a unit of General Electric.

Retaining Mr. Leno will undoubtedly be seen as a coup for Mr. Zucker, who has faced some serious questions about the wisdom of guaranteeing “The Tonight Show” to Mr. O’Brien and possibly losing Mr. Leno to another network.

. . .

Actually, Leno took over full time from Johnny Carson on Memorial Day 1992.....

lb13

This is why it works for NBC: 5 hours of prime time dramas cost about $15 million a week. They can get Leno and his show for about $3 million a week. NBC has no hits at 10pm. The perceived potential problem is that people tend to only watch the first half of Leno's show (Letterman has the same issue), which would depress the ratings of NBC stations local news- BUT what are people going to switch to? The last half hour of a drama? I doubt it.

Conan's the big loser with this- he will be competing for guests and face time with a more popular guy on his own network.

Letterman will own late night, at last.

nitrah55 wrote:
Conan's the big loser with this- he will be competing for guests and face time with a more popular guy on his own network.

Letterman will own late night, at last.

I don't get why Conan is still on the air. When he first began, I cut him a lot of slack because he didn't have much television experience, and I figured he was finding his way. Now, years later, he is slightly more polished, but not necessarily any funnier.

I have developed an automatic reflex. When I see his face, my hand reaches for the remote control.

NBC had been discussing, at least semi-seriously, cutting back to two hours of prime time programming per night anyway (Fox and the CW only have two hours of programming every night but Sunday), so this represents an alternative, and depending upon how NBC's fortunes fare, they could cut the show back to one or two nights a week very easily if they need to.

The audience for talk/variety is somewhat limited, and a highly hyped Rosie O'Donnell special bombed badly a couple of weeks ago. Solid numbers for 11:30 at night are not so good for the 10:00 hour. Plus, there is no market for syndication or DVDs for a show like this, unlike most prime time dramas.

However, NBC is in big trouble. Its new series have bombed, ER is leaving the air, Heroes is going in the tank, the various Law and Order shows and Thursday comedies are fading, and they have nothing on the horizon. This is close to a desperation move on their part.

Serves NBC right for cutting Journeyman last year!

OK, so it didn't have great ratings either but at least it was an NBC show I watched. Other than the Law and Order shows, Chuck and Heroes, which is starting to lose me as well, I don't watch NBC anyway.

I might watch (Tivo, not really watch) Leno at 10PM. Occasionally. Maybe. Or not. I would likely only bother with the first half as well as I generally could care less about the guests.

nitrah55 wrote: . . .
The perceived potential problem is that people tend to only watch the first half of Leno's show (Letterman has the same issue),

. . .

I'm glad I had the whole thing on last night. I vaguely heard kd lang being introduced, then the most beautiful voice singing the most beautiful song . . .

I added a kd lang album to my Christmas list.

I hope this new show's going to be looking for a trusty veteran sidekick.....

silvercamaro wrote:

nitrah55 wrote:
Conan's the big loser with this- he will be competing for guests and face time with a more popular guy on his own network.

Letterman will own late night, at last.

I don't get why Conan is still on the air. When he first began, I cut him a lot of slack because he didn't have much television experience, and I figured he was finding his way. Now, years later, he is slightly more polished, but not necessarily any funnier.

I have developed an automatic reflex. When I see his face, my hand reaches for the remote control.

Rumor was that NBC offered Conan the late-night slot because he was getting offers from other networks, and he was holding at least some of that last-half audience.

I'm not sure he'll hold up in the earlier slot. The pressure will be on, and it could crush him.

SportsFan68 wrote:

silvercamaro wrote:

nitrah55 wrote:
Conan's the big loser with this- he will be competing for guests and face time with a more popular guy on his own network.

Letterman will own late night, at last.

I don't get why Conan is still on the air. When he first began, I cut him a lot of slack because he didn't have much television experience, and I figured he was finding his way. Now, years later, he is slightly more polished, but not necessarily any funnier.

I have developed an automatic reflex. When I see his face, my hand reaches for the remote control.

Rumor was that NBC offered Conan the late-night slot because he was getting offers from other networks, and he was holding at least some of that last-half audience.

I'm not sure he'll hold up in the earlier slot. The pressure will be on, and it could crush him.

The day he takes over "Tonight" will be the day I turn off the TV at 11:35.

Good for Leno, sucky for fans of all those NBC series that I like but apparently "America Has Spoken" or whatever about.

Oh, what the heck. They (as in, the Part of America That Speaks) got it right (on about 3rd try, I hope its not too late) on the President, I guess I can afford to lose a bunch of favorite TV shows. Either that, or the ones that live will be on at 9:00pm, warping children's lives.


A friend, former co-worker, in their 20s was given one of those "what you watch tallying devices"; it fits on their belt, & supposedly picks up any broadcast signal they're near. They got assurances from the survey co that it isn't tapping their phone calls, only broadcast signals. Radio as well as TV, they were told. I'm not sure other stuff isn't getting on the record. Their I-Pod selections?

I don't think it would pick up stuff watched on the web. Just broadcast signals.

At any rate, they asked the surveyor "why do you want me? I hardly ever watch TV, except to play DVDs I bought." Surveyor of course wanted them for the demographic, though surveyor didn't answer the question in exactly those terms.

I don't think I've ever voluntarily watched Conan again after the night about 15 years ago, its seems (OK he hasn't been on that long?) when I turned on to see Iris DeMent sing & had to sit through a "skit" about bodily functions (I hated it so much I've even surpressed what the heck functions they were, & there aren't that many, are there?) before she came out.

I don't think he's funny. Well, I don't find a lot of "comedians" funny, but he's downright offensive to me a lot of the time, for someone on broadcast TV.

Whereas I wish they put Craig Fergusen (sp?) on earlier, so I could watch him before I fell asleep. Different channel, though, isn't he?

ghostjmf wrote:Good for Leno, sucky for fans of all those NBC series that I like but apparently "America Has Spoken" or whatever about.

Oh, what the heck. They (as in, the Part of America That Speaks) got it right (on about 3rd try, I hope its not too late) on the President, I guess I can afford to lose a bunch of favorite TV shows. Either that, or the ones that live will be on at 9:00pm, warping children's lives.


A friend, former co-worker, in their 20s was given one of those "what you watch tallying devices"; it fits on their belt, & supposedly picks up any broadcast signal they're near. They got assurances from the survey co that it isn't tapping their phone calls, only broadcast signals. Radio as well as TV, they were told. I'm not sure other stuff isn't getting on the record. Their I-Pod selections?

I don't think it would pick up stuff watched on the web. Just broadcast signals.

At any rate, they asked the surveyor "why do you want me? I hardly ever watch TV, except to play DVDs I bought." Surveyor of course wanted them for the demographic, though surveyor didn't answer the question in exactly those terms.

How the heck would such a device know which station the person was watching?

ghostjmf wrote:Whereas I wish they put Craig Fergusen (sp?) on earlier, so I could watch him before I fell asleep. Different channel, though, isn't he?

Yes, he's on CBS. I too am a Craig Ferguson fan. He is naturally funny, but he also is capable of being serious when appropriate. Last night, he did a lovely tribute to his recently deceased mother, including the playing of her favorite song (some ska thing from the '70s which he described correctly as "dreadful") throughout the last minutes of the show.

Triumph the Insult Comic dog would be a better host than Conan.

TV is evolving. I'm surprised the big three haven't given up on the idea of 7 nights of 8-11 primetime programming already.

Another pet peeve... they (the big three) frequently say you can see complete episodes online. But when I go to their site they have only clips.

BobJuch says:

How the heck would such a device know which station the person was watching?

My friend was told it picks up broadcast station info, as well as time of day. They were not told how. They are being paid (not a lot, but better-than-nothing; $5/day, $5/week or something in between, I forget). The device looks the size of a cell phone, or slightly
larger, worn on the waist. They said they would recommend me to the company.

I said "I mostly watch recorded stuff too", but of course my recorded stuff, unlike theirs,
is stuff my VCRs picked up for me to time-shift. I would hope the company's technology is up to "several signals in close proximity". And if I'm not in the room while the VCRs are running, they won't get much out of me. I do go out, sometimes! I will probably never find out, as they have enough info on my "undesirable" demographic.

I also of course don't believe it won't tape all my Very Important phone conversations, even though its not a sound-recorder.

ghostjmf wrote:BobJuch says:

How the heck would such a device know which station the person was watching?

My friend was told it picks up broadcast station info, as well as time of day. They were not told how. They are being paid (not a lot, but better-than nothing; $5/day, $5/week or something in between, I forget). The device looks the size of a cell phone, or slightly
larger, worn on the waist. They said they would recommend me to the company.

I said "I mostly watch recorded stuff too", but of course my recorded stuff, unlike theirs,
is stuff my VCRs picked up for me to time-shift. I would hope the company's technology is up to "several signals in close proximity". And if I'm not in the room while the VCRs are running,
they won't get much out of me. I do go out, sometimes! I will probably never find out, as they have enough info on my "undesirable" demographic.

I also of course don't believe it won't tape all my Very Important phone conversations, even though its not a sound-recorder.

I'd like to know how that's supposed to work. You can figure out which station a TV is tuned to, but a cable box is a lot different.

Thousandaire says:

Another pet peeve... they (the big three) frequently say you can see complete episodes online. But when I go to their site they have only clips.

All the networks have some shows up on the web in complete episodes. None of the networks have all shows they show up on the web in complete episodes.

Furthermore, some networks make it unnecessarily hard to get to the episode you want, mixing it in with idiotic 3-minute clips. You just have to keep ploughing through, looking for something that says its "episode #whatever, 45 minutes".

Then you have to worry about your browser plotching out about 39 minutes through.

The commercials are usually short, less than a minute, but not skippable. Of course, you are on a computer, so you can always do something else web-involved during them. My biggest gripe is I think ABC, which makes you click to continue the program. Forget that, & you get several seconds more of dead commercial icon. Or you could rerun the commercial, of course, if you really wanted to.

ghostjmf wrote:Thousandaire says:

Another pet peeve... they (the big three) frequently say you can see complete episodes online. But when I go to their site they have only clips.

All the networks have some shows up on the web in complete episodes. None of the networks have all shows they show up on the web in complete episodes.

The networks want to keep as many viewers as possible for shows with continuing storylines like Lost, Heroes and 24. One of the problems they face is that if people miss an episode, for whatever reason, some of them quit watching because it's too hard for them to keep track of the storyline. This lets them catch up and keep watching.

I have not watched Leno for all these years I can't wait to not watch him in Prime Time.

Sir_Galahad wrote:I have not watched Leno for all these years I can't wait to not watch him in Prime Time.

I certainly don't stay up until 11:30 to watch him, but I might watch him at 10, from time to time.

Guess I'm in the minority yet again. I find Leno incredibly dull and unfunny, and love Conan when I can stay up to see him.

But they'd both lose to Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert hands down.

In a perfect world Letterman would have hosted the Tonight Show after Carson, and Leno would have been his mechanic.