Just got this one from Jonathan Samuels…
I generally agree with you re: Leno's show not working. I heard that one of the reasons NBC will keep Leno on is that they have nothing else to put in that slot. If they decided they wanted to replace Leno, wouldn't it take months to produce the shows that would go in there?
NBC does have something they could plug into the 10 PM time slot quickly. They have Dateline. I doubt they'd ax Leno completely and program five nights a week of Dateline but it wouldn't shock me if they cut Jay down to three nights a week and stuck in a couple of Datelines. Maybe Leno and his crew could get the bugs out quicker if they could do fewer shows.
By the way, one correction: NBC has an owned-and-operated station in the bay area of Northern California but it's in San Jose, not San Francisco. It's watched in San Francisco but it's really based in San Jose.