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Friday, January 08 2010 - 12:11 PM
Jay Leno Debacle
On September 17, 2009, I posted the following on my friend Steve Berger’s blog:
“This week, Jay’s been up against repeats for the most part. The real test will come next week when season premieres of popular shows like “The Mentalist” start their roll-out.
But regardless of the competition, I think the show is doomed to fail. I’m reminded of the period in 1963 when hugely-popular Jack Paar left “The Tonight Show” for a 10 PM primetime hour on Friday nights that lasted only one season. The lesson then was that what works at 11:30 does not translate well for primetime audiences.
We’ve heard all summer that the NBC affiliates were very nervous about this five-nights-a-week schedule. If Jay’s numbers begin to falter and affiliates start to abandon him (for the 100-cent dollars of locally originated programs), it’s over."
Well, sometimes you hate to have been right. Jay was an acquaintance of mine many years ago when I used to hang out at the comedy clubs. And at about the same time my wife Jeanne (before I met her) and Jay’s wife Mavis were best friends. So we’ve both wished him success.
But, as I said in September, I believed the primetime show was doomed to fail and it has. It appears now that Jay’s show will fold in February after the Winter Olympics and he will return to latenight in some form. There are many scenarios being considered, the unknown factor at this point being Conan O’Brien (whose numbers have been lackluster against Letterman on CBS).
NBC is betting that O’Brien will ultimately realize that there are few other options in late night. ABC is happy with it’s “Nightline” numbers and Fox affiliates are doing well with syndicated fare.
If O’Brien ultimately decides to stay, “The Jay Leno Show” would air at 11:35 PM for half an hour (and focus mostly on its monologue), followed by “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien” at 12:05 AM and “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” at 1:05 AM.
If O’Brien’s willing to bite the bullet, he would still host the “Tonight Show” franchise, he’d still air a half hour earlier than he did on “Late Night”, and would likely be the midnight winner over “Jimmy Kimmel.”
Sadly, the “Jay Leno Show” has done serious damage not only to NBC’s entire primetime line-up but to local 11:00 PM news programs. Now the network will have to scramble to find shows to fill five one-hour slots. And all involved should have known better.
Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.
Ray Cunneff says...
A blast from the past: As I said, I used to spend a lot of time hanging out at the Comedy Store and the Improv with my friend Canadian comic Michael Rapport (“To get with the Hollywood scene, I wore my shirt open, gold chains around my neck. A pretty girl came along and chained her bicycle to me.”)
I remember one night in particular at the Westwood Comedy Store in which David Letterman was the emcee and among the stand-up’s were Jay Leno, Robin Williams and Tim Thomerson. Tim who, you say? Tim was considered the “big gun” in stand-up back then. He had won a bunch of comedy awards and seemed poised for a huge career. (He did a hilarious impression of Charles Bronson ordering a burrito.) But he only did a few minor roles in films in the 70’s and 80’s. Funny how things turn out.
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roxi says...
NBC: ‘No Binding Contracts’ ?! Your adventures @ the comedy store sound like fun, Ray.
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Ray Cunneff says...
Ostensibly, I was there to scout new talent for CBS, but it was mostly just fun. (Although I did get a few of them some early work.) But for me, the party ended when John Belushi died at the Chateau Marmont where I had first lived when I came to California.
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roxi says...
Sounds like a fun job, looks like Letterman ended up on CBS after all. Saw Fritz Coleman yrs ago when he was still doing stand-up @ Ice House – and have some ol’ ‘groupie’ friends who are still alive (amazingly enuf) who hung out on Sunset back then. Sad about Belushi-yeah, spent a few nites @ the Marmont…wild.
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Ray Cunneff says...
My neighbors at the Chateau Marmont were Carol Lynley and Maximilian Schell. How weird is that?
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Ray Cunneff says...
Oh, they were not a couple, incidentally (if that wasn’t obvious), just lived down the hall.
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Ray Cunneff says...
roxi,
I probably knew some of your “ol’ groupie friends”, we would all wind up at Ben Frank’s on the strip at 3 AM.
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roxi says...
Not too shabby! Amazing what acts we saw back then in those small cafes & run-down bars…my fave Leon Russell bought me a drink @ the Bitter End after the Mad Dogs & Englishmen concert @ the Fillmore East – blew me away! I was famous for seeking out backstage passes back then – Joshua Light Show from backstage was awsum.
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roxi says...
ha-you probably do…..;>) One still lives up here in Lancaster in a dome, with her goats. ha.
I’ll ask the other who lives in NYC about Ben Frank’s.
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roxi says...
Actually, I think they’re hang-out was Duke’s – after hours as they were music groupies…but I’ll ask!
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Ray Cunneff says...
I think Ben Frank’s is gone now. But that’s where Sunset Strip denizens would turn up after the clubs closed for “breakfast”. (Eggs Benedict in my case.) How I would make it into work on three hours sleep I’ll never know.
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RealSteve says...
Ray
NBC just announced the end of the Leno experiment at 10 PM, was predictable.
Look for Leno back on the Tonight Show and Conan over to Fox which skews younger and has no late night show at all during the week. Conan will cry all the way to the bank.
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Ray Cunneff says...
If Conan was smart, he’d take the slot following Leno. Fox is death for latenight talk/entertainment.
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RealSteve says...
Ray
Too much Mojo lost by Conan, he will bolt for FOX and beat Leno for his Q, the Comedy Central stoner crowd, Leno will rule the moms and pops crowd.
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Ray Cunneff says...
With some form of timeslot shuffle now inevitable, Leno had some fun at NBC’s expense on his show last night.
“The Justice Department announced they will conduct an anti-trust review of Comcast’s proposed deal to merge with NBC. An anti-trust review. Which is the relationship I have with NBC, anti-trust. What does NBC stand for? Never believe your contract.”
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