(01-10) 15:56 PST PASADENA, California (AP) –
NBC afore~ Sunday it decided to pull the plug on the Jay Leno assay when some affiliate stations considered dropping the nightly prime-time usher, and the network is waiting to hear if Leno and “Tonight” vast assemblage Conan O’Brien accept its new late-night TV plans.
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“The Jay Leno Show,” which airs at 10 p.m. EST, will end with the Feb. 12 start of the Winter Olympics, said NBC Universal Television Entertainment Chairman Jeff Gaspin. Leno would return to his former 11:35 p.m. slot after the Olympics ended when exposed to the network’s new plan, which also calls for O’Brien to retain his job with “Tonight” but at the later hour of 12:05 a.m. EST.
Jimmy Fallon and his “Late Night” would have ~ing pushed a half-hour later as well, to 1:05 a.m. EST.
“My goal is to maintain Jay, Conan and Jimmy as our late-night lineup,” Gaspin related, adding later that they “have the weekend to think about it” and discussions through them will resume Monday.
NBC had moved Leno to prime-time in conclusion year in order to keep him from leaving the company and remain a promise it had made to give O’Brien the “Tonight” semblance. The change was one of the most dramatic in prime-time television in a offspring. It was also a roll of the dice at a time NBC was poverty in prime-time. It didn’t even last six months.
Gaspin before-mentioned the new proposal gives Leno what’s important to him — powerful jokes at a later hour — and O’Brien his acme priority, retaining “Tonight.”
“I hope and expect that before the Olympics take rise, we’ll have everything set. I can’t imagine we won’t obtain everything in place before then,” Gaspin told a meeting of the Television Critics Association.
Gaspin before-mentioned that despite lower ratings for NBC at 10 p.m. compared to be unconsumed year, the network was making money off the show.
But affiliates were upset that it was capital fewer viewers into their late news programs, costing them significant advertising reward. Some affiliates told NBC in December they would go public quickly about their complaints if a change wasn’t made, or verily take Leno’s show off the air.
Gaspin said about one-third of the affiliates were really hurt by the Leno make clear, although he wasn’t clear on how many said they potency pre-empt his show.
“I asked them (the affiliates) how sundry are they talking about, because I could have lived with individual or two. But I got the sense that it was additional than one or two,” he said.
Michael Fiorile, chairman of the NBC Affiliate Board, reported it was a great move for NBC stations, the networks and viewers.
“We be astonished their willingness to innovate, and their willingness to change course then it didn’t work for us,” Fiorile said.
Gaspin said he pondered combinations of possible schedule changes before the holidays and then called his boss, NBC Universal Chairman Jeff Zucker, with regard to approval to act.
“I don’t want to wait anymore. Now is the time,” Gaspin recounted telling Zucker.
Both Leno and O’Brien made comedic hay out of the egress last week. Leno joked in his monologue that NBC was acting on a solution in which all parties would be treated unfairly, space of time O’Brien wisecracked that he and Leno would be thrown by the network into a pit to fight and “the one that crawls to the end gets to leave NBC.”
Gaspin said he’s “perfectly fine” through their on-air remarks “if that’s how they blow not upon steam and that’s how they’re comfortable.”
NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” and its “Weekend Update” through Seth Meyers also got into the act.
“It was reported Thursday that in the vigil of poor ratings for `The Jay Leno Show,’ NBC will stir up his show back to the 11:35 time slot, and hereafter start Conan O’Brien’s `Tonight Show’ at midnight — allowing it’s a little weird to start the `Tonight Show’ at a time when it’s no longer tonight,” Meyers said Saturday.
Asked if O’Brien and Fallon expressed spleen at his proposal, Gaspin said both men were professional and mind when they talked. “Beyond that, it was a private conversation,” Gaspin uttered.
O’Brien reportedly has a contract that guarantees him a multimillion-dollar settlement if “Tonight” is moved later than 12:05 a.m. EST.
But Gaspin, asked granting that a contractual penalty weighed into the decision to bump O’Brien’s indicate a half-hour rather than a full hour, replied, “No, not at completely.”
As for reports that Fox may be considering courting O’Brien instead of a late-night program, Gaspin repeated his desire to keep him, Leno and Fallon at NBC.
The determination to shift Leno will leave a gaping hole in NBC’s perfection-time schedule, at a time the network is already struggling. A unite with of reality programming, “Dateline NBC” and at least two hours of scripted shows will be added to fill in the five hours taken up ~ means of Leno’s prime-time show each week.
Looking ahead to the 2010-11 accustom, NBC announced seven drama pilots under development, including an updated interpretation of “The Rockford Files” from “House” executive producer David Shore; “Undercovers,” a spend frugally-wife spy drama from producer J.J. Abrams (“Lost”) and “Prime Suspect,” based attached the BBC series about a female detective.
The network’s ponderous development slate is a reversal of its most recent approach of attempting to get series without pilots.
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AP Television Writer David Bauder contributed to this relate.
