The OtherArena

corrado · Joined: 01 Aug 2006 Posts: 4958 Location: LI

Throughout the past year, NBC has denigrated from a ratings powerhouse to a network with lots of commercial and creative misfires.

Earlier this year, Conan O'Brien becomes the host of the Tonight Show. However due to various reasons, Jay Leno stays on NBC and gets a 5-night a week show at 10:00. Thus eliminating an hour for scripted shows. It was doomed from the start and the ratings for Leno have been so-so at best. Conan though is now trailing David Letterman, who went ahead due to lackluster reviews and of course details about David Letterman's personal life.

And then Heroes who in year 4 has the lowest ratings it's ever gotten. Its gotten so bad that it now doesnt even have commercials promoting what's going to happen on the show.

They have very few scripted, non-football shows that are hits. Aside from the Office, and the best show on TV 30 Rock (which is more critical than commercial and its success last year was mainly to Tina Fey's Sarah Pailin impression on SNL.) They have a decent new show, Community though but it's probably not going to be a smash hit.

And now NBC canned one of their shows "Southland" which was to premiere its 2nd season in a few weeks but it got axed before it aired.

http://www.deadline.com/hollywood/wasnt-nbc-boasting-about-this-show/

NBC has a very cloudy future ahead. After football, it should be entrenched in 4th Place. Maybe the Winter Olympics will save them, but I doubt it.

jdw · Site Admin Joined: 01 Sep 2005 Posts: 17128

Things go in cycles. NBC's franchise got old and are largely gone. The network's ability have shows earlier in their life pick up the slack when others retire, especially the Thursday night monster, sort of fools us into thinking that NBC would be a pernament #1 or #2.

The other networks had their ups and downs. NBC avoided it for what... close to 30 years? 25?

Some of CBS's franchises are longer of tooth. The entire CSI/NCIS franchise is. I like the addition of Fishburn, but I also liked Griss and can see the show losing some of its fanbase. Their Comedy Monday isn't what it once was at its peak, and only looks "hitty" because there are so few comedy hits still on TV.

FOX and ABC are American Idol and Dances With Stars central. Neither are young franchises. In terms of drawing, Desperate Housewives and Lost on ABC are past their peak and pretty clearly getting long of teeth. One gets the feeling that if either of those reality franchises hits the wall on FOX or ABC that the networks will hit the wall.

The Leno concept isn't going to be a ratings winner, but with the costs it looks like it could be a $$$ winner. If it is, it's likely that other networks will follow in replacing expensive money losers with cheaper programing. That always was the push towards Reality Shows: it's cheaper than star driven comedies and dramas. If we see other networks follow suit, it will drag them downward while NBC is already well positioned.

Do they need an anchor and a couple of other hits? Of course.

John

corrado · Joined: 01 Aug 2006 Posts: 4958 Location: LI

NBC was saved by Bill Cosby and Cheers in the 1980's, and revived in the 1990's by Seinfeld, friends, and the George Clooney version of ER.

With CBS, the original CSI's ratings have declined rapidly I guess due to Fishburne and that tough Thursday night timeslot. NCIS seems to be the crown jewel now, Goth Girl and all. And CBS' Monday Night comedies are doing very well. They're up from last year.

Lost's final season is this year. It was announced for over a year that Lost would end, so the writers and producers have the ending planned already. And while Lost doesnt have monster ratings, it hasnt exhibted a fall from grace, and it still has a very rabid fanbase. So Lost will get a moment in the sun this May.

Fox's main breadwinners are Idol and House. But that new show Glee could be up there soon. But 24 is for sure going to end very soon. There's rumors about its demise and the whole gimmick is very stale at the moment. Its a show that should've ended a few years ago, IMO.

jdw · Site Admin Joined: 01 Sep 2005 Posts: 17128

Iron Chad · Joined: 01 Aug 2006 Posts: 1163

CFTV · Joined: 01 Aug 2006 Posts: 284

A little known tOA fact is that all of the Overnight TV Ratings go through the department I work in at Nielsen.................................

corrado · Joined: 01 Aug 2006 Posts: 4958 Location: LI

Here's a recap of what happened in NBC Land over the past week:

They cancel the Jay Leno Show due to pressure from affilates and decide to bring him back to 11;35, but for a half-hour while Conan's Tonight Show moves to Midnight. Conan though refused to, and has based NBC without end this week on his show, and its either going to be him leaving NBC and Leno having an entire hour at 11:35, or a slim chance of Leno leaving and Conan getting the Tonight Show at 11:35. I dont see that one happening.

Meanwhile the other late-night shows headed by Letterman have bashed NBC and Leno as well. Letterman feeling like a kid in a candy store seeing NBC crumble.

While NBC deserves a lot of the blame, some blame too should go to the whining affilates for being upset that their local news rating were very low due to Leno's show leading in. Just stupidity from a lot of parties here.

If I was Conan, I'd say the hell with NBC and go to Fox. That way his show could regain the edge it has lacked (before this week) and FOX is perfect for that sort of edge. All the while sticking it to NBC.

Here's some literature of this week's happenings:

http://www.deadline.com/hollywood/nbc-officially-cancels-leno-at-10pm-nothing-else-a-done-deal/
http://www.deadline.com/hollywood/nbc-indicates-changes-coming-to-jay-leno-show-due-to-affiliate-issues/
http://www.deadline.com/hollywood/conan-obrien-resigning-tonight-show/
http://www.deadline.com/hollywood/jeff-zucker-threatens-to-ice-conan-ill-keep-you-off-the-air-for-3-12-years/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

jdw · Site Admin Joined: 01 Sep 2005 Posts: 17128

Yep... this has been a total clusterfuck.

Jay's 59, soon to be 60, and it wasn't a bad time for the network to look to the long term of the franchise and getting their next franchise host. 1992-2009 is a strong 17 year run. Conan was 46 when he took over, which would have them looking again at a 15 year or so window with a host. The succession was something they'd planned out all the way back to 2004... lots of long term thinking here. Jay even put a happy face on it back then in wanting to avoid the Leno-Letterman bad blood story from succeeding Johnny.

Jay of course doesn't really want to go into the sunset when the time game and probably felt like he was pretty close to his peak. NBC feared he would head to Fox or ABC, so they essentially gave him a primetime version of the tonight show.

Financially, the move made sense. The cost of Jay's show is cheap compared to the typical 10 PM dramas NBC was rolling out, especially the extremely expensive (at its peak) ER which just went off the books after last year. And the Leno show actually was pulling in ratings in the 1.5 - 2.0 range that the network looked at as making $$$.

Their big misjudgement was the impact on Local News, which has long been a cash cow for affiliates but has been in the past few years starting to take a pounding. The era of high priced anchors is fading and you're seeing other cutbacks. But to remain a profit center for affilliates, they feel the need to get a lead-in.

Ratings for local news on NBC have dropped considerably. And that's really been the killer of the concept.

What's funny is that it's a concept that *might* have worked at FOX where Local News is quite a bit less critical to affilliates than it is to NBC/ABC/CBS affilliates where it's been an institution for half a century.

No one is really handling it very well at the moment.

John

Rian · Joined: 01 Aug 2006 Posts: 2223

Would be interesting to see if anything comes out of this that moves either one of them to FOX. Here in Portland, the 10 o clock news on KPTV (independent channel way back when that became FOX back in the 90's) is the highest rated news program here and routinely outdraws most of the stuff the other networks put on here regularly at that hour. Would imagine that the new show would be at 11pm or delayed (if it was a 10pm national broadcast) here in Portland as there's no way KPTV would drop their long-standing news program for a Leno or Conan talk show.

One of them will leave NBC, there's no doubt...and it's looking to be Conan since Jay was the only one with some sort of a backup clause in his contract.

corrado · Joined: 01 Aug 2006 Posts: 4958 Location: LI

http://www.tmz.com/2010/01/14/jay-leno-conan-obrien-nbc-the-tonight-show/

THat's pretty much it. A shame.

corrado · Joined: 01 Aug 2006 Posts: 4958 Location: LI

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/15/business/media/15conan.html

Keep in mind, this is Dick Ebersol, one of the masterminds of the XFL, calling something an astouding failure.

jdw · Site Admin Joined: 01 Sep 2005 Posts: 17128

Conan O'Brien to make TBS his new late-night home

That's a bit of a shocker. I'll be interested to know why he isn't headed to Fox.

John

Rian · Joined: 01 Aug 2006 Posts: 2223

Less strings attached I'd imagine as well as a bigger budget. Time Warner is throwing money trying to grab the 20-30 year olds to their late night programming.

jdw · Site Admin Joined: 01 Sep 2005 Posts: 17128

corrado · Joined: 01 Aug 2006 Posts: 4958 Location: LI

Here's a more detailed link:

http://www.deadline.com/2010/04/conan-obrien-makes-tbs-deal/

I like this move actually. It fits in to the out of the box mentality that "Team Coco" has. Instead of going for the big move to FOX, they're keeping it sort of small-scale and going to TBS. This was something I never saw coming.

Plus instead of being left to the wolves against Leno and Letterman, and with perhaps a lot of affilates with FOX not showing Conan at 11, Conan can not not have that big of ratings pressure now. The big competition though is Comedy central with the Daily Show/Colbert Report. But those shows are online and repeat dozens of times throughout the day. So that's not big of a worry there.

Points also go to George Lopez for willingly agreeing to move rather than make a scene ala Leno.