Jay Leno Stays at NBC, Moves to Prime Time

This is big! I had heard that Leno didn’t want to leave NBC neither did he want to leave his late night time slot, but that NBC was committed to replacing him with Conan.

I would never have guessed that they would not only turn over a prime time slot on one night, but the entire week? Risky indeed. After the implosion of Rosie’s much anticipated foray into Variety, does NBC really think that prime time is ready for this? Reeks of desperation imho. I guess the 4th place network has to do something to shake things up.

I prefer Letterman, so I won’t be watching in any case. I am curious to see how this pans out though. Should be interesting.

this makes me all kinds of mad. What about the 10 pm shows? What will they do with:
M My own worst enemy (have never watched it)
t Law and Order SVU (my fave non-AI/SYTYCD show!!!)
w Law and Order (old school!!)
th ER (I know, it’s ending)
f Dateline (my mom loves that show!)

Honestly, I only ever watch Jay if I have nothing TiVoed to catch up on. Other than when Cookie was on it. Some people like scripted teevee better than talk shows. NBC made a mistake in letting Jay be replaced by Conan (who is rarely funny) and now are going to alienate their Law and Order loving public even more than they did when they moved L&O:CI to USA. How will they deal with those 10pm shows? Move them earlier? Then what about those earlier shows?

:furious_tb:

One word: NO!!!! Stupid NBC, it is bad enough they’re airing Friday Night Lights but that Kath & Kim…

DivaE, they already cancelled My Own Worst Enemy and Dateline can be on anytime. I worry about the two Law and Orders. SVU really isn’t a show that can be pushed into a 9pm time slot. Maybe they’ll put it on Saturdays? NBC was saying publicly yesterday that they might cut hours of programming or nights of primetime so I guess this will allow them to do that. Until they announced this, they had more time to fill than they had shows.

Rosie’s show was an absolute disaster, but Jay is a proven commodity. He has the ability to take the back seat to his guests, which Rosie doesn’t. I think five nights a week is a bit much, but I think this will be an interesting experiment.

ER is gone, My Own worst Enemy has been canceled.

They’ll move the Law and Orders to another time spot, which could be really bad for those shows.

I don’t think they care about Dateline, Isn’t that on a few times a week anyway?

NBC is going to have 4 1/2 straight hours of talkshows/news on every evening. I think it might be a bit much. Yeah, I think this could be a total trainwreck.

On the other hand, if they had lost Leno to another network, he would have creamed both Conan (who I like) and Letterman (my favorite talk show host evah) in the ratings. With not much to lose at this point, the network is throwing all caution to the winds and are just going for it.

Good luck with that!

I agree it’s big news. I also agree it’s a dicey idea. And, I agree for the reasons stated above that it’s a bad one too. Oh well, we’ll see. No guts, no glory, so “they” say~

Well, I do love me some Leno. But, I need him to be on late night television. I don’t know if I can adjust to primetime.

I guess it is a sign of the times, bad economy and all.

However, I will watch to see what he comes up with. It may be a good move.

It’s a hail Mary pass for sure. Big risk, but if it works big book balancing benefits.

Who’s replacing Conan on the late show than? Sorry if that’s common knowledge, we get the shows in my country, but I rarely watch them or follow up on the news.

Sounds to me like NBC is pushing its whole schedule up one hour. Maybe they think people won’t care about the time? They’ll still get Leno followed by Conan… Only they’ll get much less variety in the shows preceding.

Ah, sounds like a desperate move.

While I admire any network executive for trying to think outside the box, I don’t like this move very much. I am a fan of scripted shows, not so much talk or reality based shows ( AI being the exception last year). I like to see good quality acting! Which is why I have been turning more and more to cable networks. NBC already has 4 hours of the Today show each morning and now 4. 5 hours of talk shows each night. How many times can they revisit the same well? Without a doubt the network that brought us Hill Street Blues, St. Elsewhere, and in my book Studio 60 is long gone. I wonder how fat they will go before they turn off the lights?

Every night? This makes me so sad. It’s completely the end of must-see tv. Leno gets great ratings for late night–about 3 to 4 million, but even the die hard fans are going to watch a story-type show at 10. What does ER still get? About 10 million or so? I think it’s going to be a ratings clunker for NBC and a huge perk for CBS and ABC–the only two major networks with scripted programming in that hour. On the other hand, it’s cheap and there really isn’t a place for musical acts to perform during primetime anymore, so prime time Jay might get ratings boosts when he has hot music acts on.

I hope Leno changes his format. If not, they will burn out the audience for talk shows. Why would you stay up to 11:30 to see Conan or Letterman when you could get the same format an hour and a half earlier and still get to bed on time? LOL. Now, I much prefer Conan and Letterman’s humor to Leno’s, but I hardly ever stay up to watch them anymore. And now I can catch the cool musical guests before the late news? Hmmm…..

i love Leno and he probably will remain my fave late (or.. not so late anymore) show host, but i’m hoping his style or format won’t have to change due to the earlier broadcast.

I’ll still watch him though, probably even moreso that I can get to bed earlier lol.
I’m not a Conan fan, and I’m just not sure how Jimmy Fallon is going to do replacing Conan.. so theres no doubt that Jay will still get quite a few viewers. We shall see!! i hope he does well

I’m glad they are moving it to 10, I like Leno but I can’t stay up to watch the late night show so this suits me fine.
It’s too bad they canceled My Own Worst Enemy, I love that show so this will make up for that.

I kinda like this idea. I like Leno. Some people can’t stay up late enough to see the entire show late night but can see the entire show in prime time. People who watch the show may just leave the TV on the same channel to watch the news and Conan. That’s NBC’s hope.

As for the two Law and Orders, time changes should not make a major difference for them. Being shown at 9:00 PM instead of 10:00 PM eastern time should be fine. They show the repeats on Saturday nights sometimes, starting at 7 PM and they are shown all times of day in syndication.

This will be a lot less expensive for NBC.

I don’t watch Leno, So I won’t be starting now. Ha ha.

SNL’s Jimmy Fallon is going to step in for Conan, and he’s got some pretty big shoes to fill. Based on Fallon’s SNL work, he’s not nearly as sharp as Conan is. Time will tell, I suppose. I kinda hate to lose Conan to the earlier slot, because he will have to alter some of the edgier stuff he does to appeal to Leno’s audience. But maybe the target audiences will just shift down an hour, in which case it’ll be Leno (who has to win many more new fans to be viable) and Fallon (who may lose an entire audience to Conan) on shakey ground.

And where does it leave Letterman and Craig Ferguson? Yes, this is going to be interesting to watch shake out…

Well, Fox only does two hours of programming a night and it works for them…

Seriously, the networks know they are “dead men walking,” that’s why they all have vested interests in cable channels. NBC has Bravo, SciFi, USA, MSNBC…CBS (Viacom) owns ALL the music/pop culture channels like MTV, BET, VH-1, CMT etc….ABC owns ESPN and Disney. No one wants variety (see Rosie)…they want their own personal tastes and beliefs reflected on them. NBC did NOT want to renew Days of our Lives and frankly gave them a year to wrap things up. Starting in a few years major sporting events and even award shows will move to cable. Add in the fact that most tv households get their programming via cable (statistics from http://www.ncta.com) and those households not on cable yet will switch by February 1st rather than get the DTV converter boxes, and it paints a sad picture for the old guard.

It’s only a matter of time before shows like “American Idol” will be on MTV.

well it won’t matter- as mj said- I’m not going to watch him anyways.

moving a proven show to a weekend primetime spot always seems to be the death of it.

our normal week 10pm:
Monday (we’re chasing the DVR of Heroes to miss the commercials)
Tuesday SVU
Wednesday CSI:NY
Thursday ER
Friday (we go out)

I’m very excited about the new season of AI.

I agree- 4 hours of Today, 4.5 hours of news, 3 hours of afternoon talk (Bonnie, Martha, Ellen), and hour of trash (Access, Extra), and then 4.5 hours of talk at night will be a wasted day of TV. NBC only has one soap (Days), reality (Biggest Loser, etc…)- and the scripted shows (both dramas and sitcoms) are unfortunately the only bright spots in that day…

alas, NBC.

And where does it leave Letterman and Craig Ferguson?

Good question….

I wonder why Carson Daly did not get Conan’s spot? Well, he does kinda suck so that may be the reason but at first thought that he would be their choice and that they’d just move his show up an hour and to an hour.

Eh, I’ll watch him if he has someone I like as a guest and not watch him if he doesn’t, just like always (Dear Jay – Please just rotate Colin Firth, James McAvoy, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Johnny Depp as your guests and get the White Stripes as your house band).

I don’t think any network is that great these days, but NBC certainly is struggling. I watch Heroes on NBC and that’s it. (Actually, come to think of it, I don’t watch more than one show on ANY network – Lost, Heroes, and Idol are it for me)

I like Jay so I’m glad to hear this. If anyone can pull this off, he can.

He’s going to do current events and politics too. Which people like Rachel Maddow and Keith O. manage to do 5 nights a week with great ratings.

I wouldn’t compare him to Rosie. He’s had 17 successful years, 5 nights a week. It’s just going to be a bit earlier. Surveys have shown that people would like his show to be on earlier.

I think it’ll be a success but time will tell. Instead of just dvr’ing the show, people can actually watch it live if they want to.

I’m sure they’ll figure out something with the SVU shows. Which to me are too creepy to watch anyway.

I like NBC, especially since I started watching MSNBC regularly. NBC does a great job with skating shows and the Olympics, and they’ve had great shows over the years. The networks take turns being at the top. NBC is still tops in my mind.

I find Jay only mildly amusing but I do enjoy the ” headlines” on Monday nights. I just do not “get” Conan at all. I find him annoying and unfunny.
Jay may draw audiences for a while in the new time slot but I don’t think it will last and as far as Conan goes , I think he will be a disaster.
Letterman reminds me of my cranky old uncle whom the whole family tries to avoid because he’s so unpleasant. Late night tv has never been good since Johnny Carson left. He was king.

I agree about JC, he was the best ever. I don’t like Conan either. I like Letterman but for some reason watch Leno instead.

Some good points made here about the time slot. Maybe it won’t work but it will be interesting to see what he does and how it works out.

This makes me sad for the state of TV. A lot of really good scripted dramas were cancelled recently….Pushing Daisies, My Own Worst Enemy, DSM, Eli Stone….that had snagged a growing fanbase/ decent ratings, because weekly scripted dramas are expensive to produce. And then this move by NBC? Means that I will rarely watch NBC at 10. Never cared for Leno and was counting the days until Conan took over. And I’m a late nighter who would look forward to 10 oclock programming because it could be a bit more mature/adult. I think those of us who prefer serialized scripted drama and not the formulaic plot of the week cop shows like L&O and CSI are gonna find increasingly slim pickings on the big 3 and will have to turn to HBO, Showtime, etc more and more. It’s too bad.