Let me start by stating that Jay Leno is a total idiot.
Thank you.
What his ego has done (with the help of NBC executives) to prime time TV is disgusting. NBC Affiliates across North America are quivering with hunger pains from the one/two punch they got with the vaporization of the economy followed by a devastating blow to the abdominal region when Jay Leno moved into prime time with an almost-show that has driven audiences to fill their evenings with anything but his show....or TV in general. Families are reuniting. Renovations are getting done around the house. Volunteerism is up 71%! Well maybe not, but he did change the landscape of TV- for the worse.
Meanwhile, Conan O'Brien is being tossed around like a chihuahua in a Kansas dirt devil. His ownership of The Tonight Show has gone from triumphant to worthless in a matter of half a year. Reunited with his old time side-kick, Andy Richter (some are blaming Andy for carrying bad juju from cancelled show to cancelled show), Conan seemed to have a lead on funny over the Jay Leno show in a big way. Leno was sure to fail. Conan should surely do well. The numbers did not end up looking like that at all. Both were doing miserably by ad revenue and audience totals. The affiliates were left with no one watching their news. That is their main source of revenue and so at every level, prime time TV began to crumble on basic cable across North America.
Was it Jay that brought down new Tonight Show numbers? Was Conan doing that bad? It seems that with a lack of general interest in Prime Time TV as this experiment took place viewers were simply finding other options outside of regular network TV.
Now NBC scrambles to put everything back as it was (what tools!) and find an audience that has already subscribed to and committed their viewing time to second and third tier specialty cable avails. Looks like cooking shows and reality shows are going to continue to have an audience for a while thanks to Jay Leno....who is a selfish, self-centered, unfunny man.
What will Conan do? Seems he will cut his losses. He has already listed The Tonight Show on craigslist.com as a "slightly-used late night talk show".
Here is the link to his listing: click here
I will be amazed if NBC comes away in the lead over their competition anytime soon. I would imagine Conan will land at FOX, and we will see a whole host of make-do programming in prime time until the next big drama series takes hold. They are going to have to spend a massive amount of money getting back to mediocre. Good on ya, NBC.
Mike Wixson
Executive Producer
RedFish Studios
mike@redfishentertainment.com
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ReplyDeleteBelow is what I wrote in response to the ad. (Including the stupid typo in the subject line. I guess it was Freudian.)
ReplyDeleteSUBJECT: I'm interesting in the show
I would love to buy your show, thanks! Currently I host the show Talking Bollocks. This is a show that runs 10 minutes long. It's on YouTube. It started because my friend Marilla and I want to host a talk show, and until we get one we're interviewing each other. Every
episode. So far she's interviewed me about being Jewish, and I've interviewed her about being British. That kind of thing. We get up to 100 (that is not a typo. we get up to ONE HUNDRED) hits per episode. Check them out at http://www.youtube.com/joshrachlis
So, anyway, as you can see, your show seems like a great opportunity for me. I might be able to get Coldplay tickets for you. If they're for a concert in Toronto, is that ok?
Sincerely,
Josh Rachlis
I saw numbers that put Conan at #2; Leno at #3 and Letterman at #1.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand Leno.
I would throw like $180 bucks at this thing, Josh.
ReplyDeleteLemme know. What the hell...the couches look pretty new.