Say Goodbye to NBC as We Know It

Networks retune their lineup to court young viewers

(NEWSER) - Network TV's big hits—Modern Family, The Cleveland Show, NCIS: Los Angeles—join a pack of losers and losing news: NBC viewership is down 10% among young adults, ABC and CBS have slipped, too, and Eastwick, Hank, and Trauma have already been canceled. The LA Times surveys the playing field, mid-season.

• Comedy rules—kinda: Modern Family has reeled in 10.6 million viewers, but networks are still struggling to find the Friends or Seinfeld of the late aughts.

Ratings may stink, but bottom line will be strong for NBC

(NEWSER) - No one expects the Jay Leno Show to maintain the pumped-up ratings it got this week—not even NBC. But the low-key talk show might represent the future of network TV anyway, simply because it’s so darn cheap, writes Brian Steinberg of Advertising Age. With viewers breaking from broad network offerings in favor of niche ones on cable and online, live shows could replace pricey dramas and sitcoms. More»

Face it, O'Brien's ratings weren't great

(NEWSER) - Conan O’Brien joins the ranks of the unemployed today, so the ousted Tonight Show host now has plenty of time to track the backlash and second-guessing about the TV shell game. Jay Leno remains the villain of the piece, but the hard truth is that O’Brien never drew the numbers of young viewers to his time slot that NBC had hoped for. “The 18-to-34 group is so difficult to attract and the lower half, 18 to 25, is the hardest of all,” a strategist told the New York Times. More»

Network to produce 20 pilots next season

(NEWSER) - Now that NBC is nearly past the Jay Leno-Conan O'Brien fiasco, the network is refocusing on the job at hand: correcting a 5-year slide in ratings. The Leno gambit, which CEO Jeff Zucker described as an experiment in the "economics" of network television, represented the network's hope that Leno could draw viewers with a show that cost much less than scripted programming. Now NBC is taking the opposite approach. More»

NBC host talks 'cancellation' during tonight's monologue

(NEWSER) - Jay Leno got plenty of mileage tonight out of rumors his current 10pm NBC gig will be canceled, and that he’ll return to his old 11:35 slot. “So far, nobody has said anything to me,” he said during the opening monologue. “What does NBC stand for?” Leno later asked band leader Kevin Eubanks. “Never believe your contract.” It is noteworthy, Gillian Reagan writes for the Business Insider , that Leno called it a cancellation. More»