EJ
I don’t think he’ll hurt Conan’s ratings nearly as much at 11:30, because it’s a different standard for
success then. Leno can’t pull acceptable prime-time numbers, but he used to be able to beat Letterman on a regular basis. Of course, his former audience may have permanently migrated by this point. I just think he’ll do less damage at 11:30. But yes, it would be better to cut his old show down a couple of nights rather than opening up five hours at once and screwing everything up.
And the one thing that might actually help Conan is that if he starts at 12, he’s no longer bumping up against Stephen Colbert – back when Conan was at 12:30, he and Stephen shared a lot of the same viewers. I realize we’re talking about a cable audience vs. a network audience, but Colbert’s ratings are solid.
I don’t really like Jimmy Fallon’s show, but at least he is working hard to do something original. Poor guy. (I think it would be really fun to be in the audience for his show, but that fun doesn’t translate to TV viewing, at least to me.) And it probably means Carson Daly is done for. This is not a loss of any magnitude, but I’m fascinated by his show. He doesn’t even have a studio most of the time – I saw an episode that he shot in a deli. It’s basically a homeless guy hosting a talk show at this point. I think we need more of that.
But you’re right – it’s mind-boggling what they’ve dropped without a chance in the last few seasons. My Name is Earl had decent ratings, and it got syndicated almost immediately. As a nice, largely continuity-free series, that would have been ideal to pair with Biggest Loser. Life, like you say, was hitting its stride when it got cancelled. And they refused to learn from House, The Mentalist, Lie to Me, Monk, etc. If you have a procedural with an off-kilter lead, promote the lead! Don’t try to sell us on a “ripped from the headlines” case – those are a dime a dozen. Fill the promos full of Charlie Crews saying inappropriate or confusing things. People will want to watch that.
And I’m not sure what you can do with this, but Parks and Recreation star Aziz Ansari is a huge fan of Friday Night Lights. He Twitters about it, plugs it in personal appearances, mentions it on his blog. If one of your actors is going out of his way to talk about another one of your shows with which he is in no way involved, it seems like it shouldn’t be hard to come up with a promotional campaign that encompasses both. That should be a gift, you know? For the most part, NBC has the quality, they just have no idea how to promote it.
