Scott Jones, on his website FTVLive that caters to local news gossip, broke the news this morning that The Jay Leno Show is about to get the ax? He told KNX that the affiliates have been unhappy with the ratings that is effecting their 11p news and NBC has finally heard their complaints and could ready to give the show the boot as soon as after the Olympics. He also said that NBC is not ready to part ways the talk show host and are considering giving him back his old timeslot of 11:35p putting Conan O’Brien out of work.
You might say well what could NBC fill this timeslot with? Well they still do not have a timeslot or date for the Marriage Ref and Friday Night Lights plus they have an ordered additional eps of Trauma that do not have an air date. They could also steal programming from USA like Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Psych, White Collar or Burn Notice and the latter three start their seasons up in the next two weeks. They could also add a few Datelines and or Saturday Night Live Specials. Now that is pure speculation on my part, but I think there is a way for them to fill the hole that could be vacated by the show.
In the last few days it was announced that the NBC ordered the most pilots in a really long time, but they also have a lot of timeslots to fill. It is rumored that Heroes will end this year. If Chuck comes back and doesn’t do well, will NBC save this show again? Mercy was doing OK when it was picked up, but it has been losing steam each week. Law & Order: SVU has lost a lot of their viewers with its new timeslot so is worth to keep the show on at its current production costs with two of the highest paid actors in primetime? The Live Feed got this statement from NBC, “Jay Leno is one of the most compelling entertainers in the world today. As we have said all along, Jay’s show has performed exactly as we anticipated on the network. It has, however, presented some issues for our affiliates. Both Jay and the show are committed to working closely with them to find ways to improve the performance.†No matter what they have in the can or don’t it is the affiliates that are suffering and some of them have lost almost of their 11p newscasts viewership since Leno began to air. And if they say we don’t want to air Leno and enough of them do, it won’t matter what NBC has to fill the 10p hour as much as they do fill it with something else.
On Sunday there is a huge media event, The Critics Association Press Tour where the executives of NBC will talk to several reporters about the network and you know this issue will be front and center. So it will be interesting to see what they have to say about this, I know I can’t wait
UPDATE: There are so many rumors out there now about the schedule and the one that is really making the rounds is that Jay Leno will move to 11:35p, Conan O’Brien to 12:05a (directly against Jimmy Kimmel Live) and that Jimmy Fallon will move to 1:05a. If I were NBC I would move Leno and Conan back to their old timeslots and get rid of Fallon but give him a sitcom in primetime so he doesn’t feel completely screwed?
Now back to Jay Leno, he referenced today’s rumors on his show tonight and here are the funny things he had to say about it!
Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire are no longer part of the Spider-Man 4 and Sony will be rebooting the franchise. According to Deadline Hollywood, “Raimi told Sony Pictures: “I can’t make your date. I can’t go forward creatively.” And, so, once he said “That’s it”, Sony Pictures co-chairman Amy Pascal and Columbia Pictures’ Matt Tolmach decided they didn’t want to replace him and instead chose to reboot the franchise. Insiders also tell me that Tobey Maguire heard the news in a phone call with Amy today.” A press release sent out by Sony says that Peter Parker will be going back to high school, so whoever cast as the new Spider-Man will be a much younger actor than Maguire. I am racking my brain trying to figure out which name could play him and I am coming up blank. Hopefully Sony will go with a no name who will become one when the movie comes out. Can you think of who would be the perfect Spider-Man?
Simon Cowell announced today at the Fox Winter TCA press tour day that this will be his last season on American Idol because he will be back on Fox in 2011 with his hit UK show The X-Factor according to The Live Feed. I think that Fox is making a huge mistake by letting Simon leave American Idol because without him I am not sure I will want to watch. It will kind of be like how I have been watching So You Think You Can Dance, DVR the show and fast forward through whatever the Judges have to say. I mean when was the last time Randy Jackson and/or Kara DioGuardi said anything that was useful or interesting? And when it comes to Ellen DeGeneres she better do a sh!tload better job than she did when she was on SYTYCD because if I want to hear cheesey one-liners I will go to a bar in a tight low cut shirt with my cleavage showing and let the guys do that. Wow just writing that last paragraph, I am not sure I even want to watch American Idol this season and it starts up tomorrow.
When it comes to X-Factor, I am not sure I will want to watch another competition show where we have to pick a winner. I am seriously thinking of cleaning out my DVR and getting rid of a few them when they come back on and I am sure I am not the only one. I mean in a year and half from now won’t most of us be talent showed out?
The one positive thing is at least Simon Cowell won’t be getting the rumored $40 million a year to do AI if he stayed because in these times no one is worth that amount of money. Do you know how many families could live off of that amount of money?
How I Met Your Mother has something to sing about because tonight at 8:30p on CBS it is their 100th episode. And what better way celebrate than to do a musical number and what a musical number it is! When Barney sets his goal on landing the hot new bartender (Stacey Keibler) who rejects him because he wears suits, he decides to give up the other thing that suits him best…his suits. Once he does he lands the girl, he will question if dating her is enough for him to be OK with going casual? As you can tell from that above clip he will do a song and dance number for his love and the rest of the cast will join in! Hopefully this is the first of many group musical numbers on the show because this cast can totally belt out a tune.
Oh yeah Ted gets one step closer to meeting the mother, find out if Rachel Bilson is the one tonight on CBS at 8:30p???
Movieline unearthed this video of Bradley Cooper going to a nude beach in Croatia for Globe Trekker and I am so happy they did! Granted I would’ve been so much happier had the money shot not been ruined by a beautiful sunset that turned his naked body into just a shadow, Dang you sunsets…
