Modified On September 14, 2009
From the NBC.com site, under “About the show”:
Marking a new era in television, Jay Leno, recently named America’s Favorite TV Personality by the 2009 Harris Poll, moves from late night to primetime on September 14 when “The Jay Leno Show” becomes the first-ever entertainment program to be stripped across primetime on broadcast network television.
The website has a clip of Tig Notaro, one of a handful of standup comics who will make up the show’s Laugh Squad. They’ll fan out and make comedy five days a week, 50 or so weeks a year.
The show, says the site, “promises more comedy in the 10 o’clock hour and will showcase many of the features that have made Leno America’s late-night leader for more than a dozen years.”
We will find out in the coming weeks just which of the features NBC thinks has made the show better than Late Show. Allegedly, there will be more standup comics appearing on the show. That’s good. Bob Read and Ross Mark will choose the comedians.
No more drama at ten o’clock on the coasts. That hour has always been drama on the three majors. The television business seems rocked by the heresy. It’s been drama, drama, drama for years now.
Although that hasn’t been the case, throughout all the nets, throughout the years. We pulled one of our favorite books down from the shelf– “Watching TV” by Harry Castleman and Walter J. Podrazik– and turned randomly to 1972. In that year, The Dean Martin Show, The Julie Andrews Hour and Love, American Style all aired at ten on various weeknights. (On NBC, ABC and ABC respectively.) In that same year, CBS premiered The New Bill Cosby Show at ten, in between a movie on NBC and Monday Night Football on ABC. In the previous three or four years, the nets variously slotted newsmagazine shows, movies, variety or comedy in the ten o’clock hour.
The “rule” hadn’t been enforced by 1980 (the last year detailed in the book), as the big three were still trying news, movies and specials.
Interesting thing about these rules in television. They remain in effect until someone breaks them and makes a profit. Which makes sense. But the way critics and other wags were talking about NBC’s move, one might get the impression that they wish NBC to fail. Is it Jeff Zucker? Is it Leno? (Word on the street is that he’s a genuinely nice, hard-working guy.) Is it a deep-seated aversion to anything new? Is it a deep-seated aversion to comedy? Has everyone “tolerated” comedy as long as it was in the 11:30PM to 1:30 AM television “ghetto?” (Remember, during the chess game surrounding Leno, Letterman, Kimmel, etc. and the possible changes proposed? Nobody gave a rat’s ass about Nightline until cold-hearted, profit-driven television executive threatened to throw it overboard in favor of… comedy.) For some reason, profit reaped from news or drama is just business as usual… until profit reaped from news or drama is swapped out for profit from… comedy! Then critics and others get out the crying towels.
It will be interesting.
It will be clear, from early on, if this “experiment” works. Who knows, maybe Americans will stop watching the evening news at eleven, not wishing to harsh their comedy buzz, leading to better sleep and more of it. In this 24-hour news cycle/internet/Sports Center world we live in, doesn’t the news at 11 (10 Central and Mountain) seem less and less relevant? For decades now, they’ve done just the opposite– watched the news, then watched light-hearted interviews, music and comedy while drifting off– catching Steve Allen, Jack Paar, Johnny Carson, et al. while dozing off. Perhaps the revolution won’t so much be in obliterating hourlong drama at ten, but truncating everyone’s viewing day at 11 PM. Of course, this will kill the golden late-night goose, relatively speaking… instead of making billions in the aggregate, they’ll all rake in hundreds of millions.
But maybe the American workplace will be better rested an in a better humor.
And, of course, more standup comics will gain primetime exposure in the bargain.