There had been rumors that ABC and CBS had been banning their talent from doing NBC’s The Jay Leno Show and looks like last night Julia Louis Dreyfus confirmed it when she appeared on his show. When I saw she was on his show, I was like I thought she wasn’t allowed to be on his show because The New Adventures of Old Christine is on CBS, and thought since he isn’t a threat to their 10p shows they said OK. But in reality it according to her it was her saying she was going to do his show. It will be interesting to see if any other ABC and CBS stars will cross The Jay Leno Show line when they have stuff to promote that isn’t related to their network’s shows. Personally I can’t blame the networks for saying no because he is direct competition to their programming and so far he has only beat one show in the ratings. Which I guess means that Christian Slater’s the forgotten might be living up to its name soon???
After years of promising us that he would retire from the Tonight Show in 2009, Jay Leno is keeping his promise. Tonight is his last show on NBC’s late night schedule. That is until he moves to his early bird special of 10p in September. So say goodbye to The Tonight Show with Jay Leno tonight on NBC at 11:35p.
Jay Leno returned to his talk show tonight on NBC at 11:35p after his brief hospitalization late last week. I don’t know what was is that stuff they used to rehydrate him, but he was funnier than I have seen him a long time! Seriously who else besides me could actually see Conan O’Brien trying to snuff him out with a pillow? Starting next month he will Jay’s 11:35p slot, but I am sure he would rather have Jay’s 10p slot!
On the first night of sweeps, Jay Leno was so sick he was taken to the hospital for unknown reasons and was forced to cancel tonight and tomorrow’s taping. According to People, he wasn’t feeling well, so one of his co-workers took him to a nearby hospital. His rep says he is doing fine and, “He was kidding around with the hospital staff and running his monologue jokes by the doctors and the nurses,” says NBC’s Tracy St. Pierre. “He’s expected back to work on Monday.” Hopefully he will be better soon.
While he might be better soon, lots of big wigs at NBC are probably sh!tting a brick right now because sweeps is so huge and they really needed Jay to help Jimmy Fallon as a lead-in before he exits the show later this month for the 10p slot in the fall. And that must make the NBC execs really nervous, will he still be able to handle the show next season? I would hate to be them now. See that is what they get for cutting the Heroes order from 20 to 18 next year.
A few months ago, NBC announced that they were keeping Jay Leno and moving the show to 10p. Well now the NBC affiliate in Leno’s hometown of Boston, WHDH told NBC thanks, but no thanks. Instead WHDH has decided to air an hour of news instead of Leno.
Well let’s just say that NBC isn’t that happy about their plans according to the Boston Herald.
“WHDH’s move is a flagrant violation of the terms of their contract with NBC,†said John Eck, president of the NBC TV Network. “If they persist, we will strip WHDH of its NBC affiliation. We have a number of other strong options in the Boston market, including using our existing broadcast license to launch an NBC-owned and operated station.â€Â
Rick Cotton, NBC Universal’s general counsel, said “it is clear that WHDH is contractually required to air NBC programming as scheduled by the network.â€Â
That is messed up of NBC. They have been pretty much putting on crappy programming for the last few years and they have dropped to 4th place in the overall ratings for the TV season. So it is no surprise that the NBC affiliates aren’t happy with the fact they moved Leno, who averages a much smaller audience than most of the shows that currently air in the 10p slot, into primetime. Affiliates need strong programming at 10p to lead into their newscasts where they make money in advertising and I really don’t Leno can do that. While Leno did great at 11:35p, 10p is a whole different ballgame that I doubt he will be able to have the same effect in. I respect WHDH for taking a stand against something that is probably going to hurt them big time.
