All NBC needed to do over the next couple of years is find their new ER, Law & Order, or their own CSI-type franchise. It was all there. A late night veteran moving from 12:30 to 11:30, easily with 20 years left in him. A glimpse of rebuilding their Thursday night comedies. They had Dateline. They have Brian Williams. SNL is funny again and everyone talks about it. And with a few good picks by programming, NBC might’ve been ready to make a comeback.
Instead, they panic at the first sign of complaints from their affiliates and rather than stick to the formula that’s worked in television for decades, they put a second version of Jay Leno’s Tonight Show on at 10 o’clock every night and they don’t even make it different …or good. Like EJ points out, there’s not a chance it can be syndicated, or air as re-runs. It can’t pick up new viewers, but only aging viewers who, let’s face it, are a “dying demographic” and I don’t mean to be crass, but they are getting older.
