Okay, here's my fearless prediction about what's going to happen with the reconfiguration of the NBC schedule with Leno and O'Brien and those two guys who come after them. I think it's easiest to divide the prediction up into stages because that's how this thing's going to roll out.
Stage One starts Monday when Conan takes over The Tonight Show. I've found Conan disappointing the last year or two. I can't think of a single new, innovative thing he's done to equal his earlier achievements. There have been nights when he comes out and does what's largely a medley of catch phrases — "Be cool, my babies" and the string dance and a lot of mugging and such. That's great for the studio audience, boring at home. I'm assuming, based on his past track record, he and his crew will rise to the occasion, dump all that needs to be dumped and do an exciting, fresh program. I hear his test shows have been great and his set is spectacular and his mood, with the new gig and Andy Richter back on the premises, is reborn.
My guess is Conan will do very well during Stage One…and of course, that's self-perpetuating for a while. When your show is hot, the hot guests flock to it and that keeps you warm.
Stage Two starts in the Fall when The Jay Leno Show debuts at 10 PM. I think it'll do well the first few nights, a little less well the second few nights, a little less well after that and so on. ABC and CBS will be throwing stunts and heavyweight programming against it and The Jay Leno Show will not feel like "must see TV" with that competition. It'll be like, "We can watch Jay some other time" and much of America will not want to miss the big event on CSI Muncie or whatever's against him. Having Jay on will also diminish Conan somewhat. The best guests will be split between two shows instead of them all being on Tonight.
There are times when you can almost feel the press and competitors chomping to declare failure and I smell schadenfreude in the air — folks who've never liked Jay, those who've been enjoying NBC's decline, etc. Within the industry, there are many who resent that Leno is occupying five hours of network prime time that, they think, would otherwise have gone to shows from which they could have financial or career benefits. The minute it can be said, it will be said that the Leno Prime Time Experiment is a disaster. I don't think it will be but I expect we'll hear that, just as breathessly as we once heard that going with Jay over Dave was the biggest bonehead mistake a network had ever made and The Tonight Show would never be Number One again under Leno. What could make it a genuine flop is if affiliates believe that and defect…or threaten it in sufficient numbers.
We've already seen the NBC station in Boston declare they were going to stick an hour of local news in at 10 PM in place of the new Leno offering. The parent network went to work, applied pressure and got Boston on board…for now. But what if The Jay Leno Show performs below expectations in its first months? Or what if it's doing okay but too many of its viewers take its closing credits as a signal that it's time to go beddy-bye? That would not only hurt Conan further but cause many local NBC stations to consider doing what Boston wanted to do or, more likely, bumping Jay to 10:35 and putting their 11 PM local news on at ten. Local news is a key source of revenue for most stations and if a lot of NBC affiliates see a drop-off, the game will become whether the net can keep them from going rogue.
NBC knows this, thinks they can prevent it…and probably can. Since his last show, Conan has been visiting affiliates, shaking hands, taping promos, building their rooting interest. Between now and the time his new show debuts, Jay will be doing a lot of that. He'll also have this going for him: Even if it finishes second or third in its time slot, his show will probably be quite profitable for NBC. Even giving him a Lamborghini full of money every week, the network stands to make a ton because his program will be so much cheaper than the usual 10 PM film show. They can afford to pass some of those bucks on to the affiliates in various ways and to spend a fortune on promotion and advertising. They have too much riding on this not to. Still, both shows could have a rough period between the time Jay goes on and the point where we get to Stage Three…
I don't know exactly when Stage Three will kick in but it will be when his competition becomes primarily reruns. CBS and ABC may work hard to delay it but at some point, the math of prime time license fees demands that they program repeats against Leno…and that's when Jay with his new shows will have a big advantage.
Back in the Paleolithic era of television, reruns did as well or almost as well as new programming. But in the era of VCRs and TiVos and dozens of other channels on cable, that doesn't happen. For some reason, whether a show feels old is more significant than whether people can recall seeing it before. That's why Jay and Dave both do fewer reruns than Johnny did…and why they select them from a few weeks back, instead of (as J. Carson did) a year earlier. Jay will get a boost when he has new shows opposite reruns at 10 PM and that, I think, is when the success of the new venture will be realized.
Leno will do well enough then to make up for any weakness in the early months of the experiment. Conan will regain enough ground that he'll be secure. The guys I think are going to suffer are Carson Daly and, to a lesser extent, Jimmy Fallon.
You may not know who Carson Daly is but he hosts a stealth talk show. It's on NBC right after Late Night With Jimmy Fallon…or at least, I think it is. I haven't checked lately and from what I can tell, neither has anyone else. He stays on, year after year, because he shows a modest profit and doesn't cause problems. It's an unimportant time slot with nothing to support. Leno's new venture will not be a true talk show but it'll have the look and feel of one…and I can't help but think that Daly's will come to be one talk show too many, especially if NBC's rerunning Jay's show in the early A.M. (I suspect that's under discussion. It would be a lot more entertaining than the televised poker they have there now. Then again, watching my mother apply salve to her psoriasis is more entertaining than televised poker.) Maybe they'll try switching Daly to cable but I think his show's going to go away…and if and when it does, I think Jimmy Fallon will turn into Carson Daly.
I like Fallon as a performer but I can't watch his new series. I try every week or three but they still look like test shows to me. He has little rapport with his guests, not a lot of commanding presence as a host…and if you ever want to make sure I turn off your show, just bring studio audience members down and ask them to lick things in exchange for a ten dollar bill. Chuck Barris would be embarrassed to put that on television.
He's getting decent numbers but he's also not showing great strength. Craig Ferguson on CBS occasionally beats him and does it without the benefit of as strong a show on before him. Ferguson has a following…Fallon has a lead-in. NBC may be too busy fighting for Jay and Conan to pay much attention to Fallon and it'll probably be easier to just leave him on as long as he shows a profit, the way they've left Carson Daly on. (Fallon's show is also a Lorne Michaels project and the last thing anyone at NBC wants to do is displease Lorne Michaels.) I don't think he's going away but I also can't imagine him being very important…not the way Dave or Conan were once important in that time slot.
Speaking of Dave: I don't think any of what happens on NBC will affect him much. He might lose some share to Conan for a few weeks as viewers see what the The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien is like but it'll all settle back to the old levels. I don't imagine anything that happens on NBC is going to make a lot of difference in his life. Or Jimmy Kimmel's. They're more likely to be impacted if someone new gets into the mix…like if Fox hired away Jon Stewart and gave him an hour at 11 PM, that would be a Brand New Ball Game for everyone.
As you might have sensed, I don't have gobs of confidence in any of this. The waters here are just too uncharted. Still, it does seem to me that those who are predicting disaster for Leno at 10 PM are underestimating, as onlookers so often have, Leno's popularity…and also the value of counterprogramming new comedy shows against rerun cop shows. Some are also saying that the lineup of Jay/Conan/Jimmy/Carson will be just too many programs that cover much the same ground. I think that's true but that the weakness will show at the end of the parlay, not at the beginning.
Anyway, if I had to bet, that's how I'd bet: Stage one, Conan does great. Stage two, Leno debuts strong but soon drops off and maybe drags Conan down with him. Stage three, both shows rebuild to the point where the whole idea of Jay at ten, Monday through Friday, starts to look like a smart move. Dave and Jimmy are unchanged. Carson Daly goes away. And Fallon hangs in there with one of those shows that no one watches but somehow it just stays on.
Let's see if I'm even vaguely close to right. A few years ago, I wouldn't have stuck my neck out with a prediction like this but I've been watching pundits on cable news. There's no longer any penalty in this world for getting everything wrong. And at least if I'm wrong, I'll be wrong about something pretty inconsequential.