Leno Doing Worse Than Conan

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»

The Jay Leno Show performing well, but many still want it to fail

(NEWSER) - Jay Leno touched off a firestorm of industry backlash as he launched his primetime show, and it’s not over yet: Rival networks ABC and CBS are encouraging their stars to boycott The Jay Leno Show since it competes with their own 10pm series, the Los Angeles Times reports. Julia Louis-Dreyfus, a longtime Leno pal and the first CBS actor to appear on the show, told the host uncomfortably, “Yes, there was a little pressure, because, as you know, you are now on primetime and I'm on a different network." More Leno news: More»

Jimmy Fallon tops Craig Ferguson in ratings race

(NEWSER) - Jay Leno owned the 11:35 time slot last night, smashing both David Letterman and ABC’s combination of Nightline and Jimmy Kimmel as curious viewers tuned in to see Leno take back the Tonight Show gig. Leno scored a 5.7 rating, compared to 3.0 for Letterman, 3.4 for Nightline, and 1.8 for Kimmel, Entertainment Weekly reports. More»

Is there any joke that can save the big-chinned one?

(NEWSER) - The public has largely branded Jay Leno the villain in the Conan debacle, but if there’s anything that can repair the damage it’s a good joke right? So New York magazine asked a bunch of local comedians how The Chin should open tonight’s show. Their suggestions:

• “Ladies and gentlemen, the only reason you see me standing here is I was NBC's Plan B. Plan A involved the corpse of Johnny Carson and a lightning bolt.” —Jay Black