www.chicagotribune.com/business/columnists/chi-phil_column_monjan11,0,3863675.column
chicagotribune.com NBC should have heeded affiliates Late-night lineup fiasco could have been avoided Phil Rosenthal Media January 11, 2010 NBC on Sunday confirmed its plan to airlift "The Jay Leno Show" out of prime time next month and return it to the safety of late night, with NBC Universal TV boss Jeff Gaspin saying the network no longer could ignore affiliates' complaints about how its experiment was costing them money. Not that the network didn't try. "This was not an issue for the network. It was an issue for our affiliates," Gaspin told a gathering of reporters in Pasadena, Calif. "We were making money at 10 p.m. (9 p.m. Central with Leno). I think over time (his ratings) might have started to grow. For the network, it was not yet a wrong decision." For many of NBC's affiliates, it was never a right decision. NBC might have been able to maintain its profit margins even with diminished viewership because Leno's program costs less than the scripted dramas traditionally seen in its time slot. But affiliates, whose late local newscasts ratings were dragged down by the strategy, enjoyed no such benefit. That's why they pushed to end what was to be a one-year experiment after just a few months. "The Jay Leno Show" will leave prime time Feb. 12. After NBC's Winter Olympics coverage, Leno will return to his old start time of weeknights at 10:35 p.m. on Chicago's NBC-owned WMAQ-Ch. 5, following the news. The rest of the details are in flux until Conan O'Brien, Leno's successor on "The Tonight Show," decides how much of this he is willing to tolerate. "My goal right now is to keep Jay, Conan and Jimmy (Fallon) as part of our late-night lineup," Gaspin said. "As much as I'd like to tell you we have a done deal, we know that's not true." O'Brien has to decide whether he will accept a move to 11:05 p.m. after a half-hour hosted by Leno. Fallon, the "Saturday Night Live" alumnus now hosting the post-"Tonight" "Late Night," O'Brien's old show, may have to sign off on a later start as well. Carson Daly would remain part of the NBC family, for whatever that's worth. Should O'Brien balk and force NBC to pay off his contract and its pricey penalties for messing with him while he sees what Fox and others have to offer, Leno is likely to wind up back with the hourlong "The Tonight Show." "I would have liked nothing more than to give (Leno in prime time) a 52-week try," Gaspin said. "Affiliates started calling, saying local news was being impacted more than expected. In some cases, they had the No. 1 news show, and now they were No. 3." Those who saw this coming were silenced from the start. Ed Ansin, owner of NBC's Boston affiliate, immediately knew what Leno in prime-time would cost him and wanted to move his late newscast into the slot instead. NBC threatened to pull the station's affiliation until it fell in line, discouraging dissent elsewhere. Had NBC listened to those who said the Leno plan threatened local profits even if the network fared OK, it might have avoided this whole expensive mess. That few of the viewers lost by NBC with Leno were picked up by rival networks ought to be of some concern to those who care about the future of scripted dramas and network television. Gaspin advanced the idea that maybe NBC was just too far ahead of the curve in what it was trying to do. It's also possible NBC just turned the wrong way. NBC Universal Chairman Jeff Zucker's great innovation back when running the network was to "supersize" a few popular shows to mask development and scheduling deficiencies. Those under him had to see this as a similarly creative Band-Aid solution to yet another self-inflicted wound. The problem was that as effective as NBC was at tuning out affiliates' complaints, viewers were better at tuning out its stations. Radio flyers: Former TV reporter Amy Jacobson, installed by WLS-AM 890 last spring as a traffic and weather reporter on Roe Conn's afternoon show, was reassigned from the program, which on Monday welcomes WIND-AM 560 import Cisco Cotto as Conn's new co-host. "I'm really excited to have (Cotto) along," Conn, who recently agreed to a new deal with the Citadel Broadcasting outlet, said Sunday. "It's going to change the dynamic, but it will give him an opportunity to show a different side from what he's been doing and me a chance to show a different side from what I've been doing."
