Jay Leno is back on the attack
Jay Leno returned to his old chair and his old time-slot Monday night, bringing the Great Late Night Shake-Up to its conclusion. Comforting his legions of loyal fans, Leno and his show did business as usual—no new gadgets or gimmicks, nothing to disorient regular viewers who always liked the format just the way it was. The Hollywood Reporter characterized the performance as doing “the job of making middle-of-the-road laughs.”
Other pundits suggested that an appearance by US Ski Team poster-girl and all-American sweetheart Lindsey Vonn probably did not hurt the numbers either. Elegantly dressed and showing just enough leg to thrill her millions of male fans, Vonn sparkled; she has grown extremely comfortable before the cameras. Alluding to Vonn and taking one of only a few shots at the network Leno, quipped, “When it comes to going downhill, nobody’s faster. OK, except NBC.”
Leno’s reprise brought closure to a drama that has unfolded, not always elegantly, since just before Christmas.
In September, NBC restructured the last hour of primetime and all of the late-night schedule, hoping to hold steady in the ratings while drastically reducing production costs. Moving Jay Leno to 10pm, the network saved the huge costs associated with primetime dramas, which sometimes cost nearly as much as motion pictures without producing nearly the same revenue. Moving Conan O’Brien to 11:30 pm, the network expected to retain Leno’s fan base and augment it with scores of younger viewers, who like O’Brien’s off-beat, frequently self-deprecating style. Forecasters were wrong on all counts.
Proposals for returning Leno to the premier late night spot began circulating when local network affiliates complained that they had lost market shares and advertising revenues from their 11pm newscasts. The majority of viewers do not change channels for late local news, so the network that wins the 10pm contest typically wins at 11, too. Some NBC affiliates complained of losses over 50%, pleading with network officials to put Leno back where he reigned as #1 for fifteen years.
Preliminary overnight ratings indicated the plan mostly worked. Garnering more than 6.5 million viewers, Leno handily beat Letterman by a million screens. Although the numbers came nowhere close to all-time records, they were considerably higher than last year’s Leno averages, and they outperformed O’Brien’s average by nearly 40%.
