Jay Leno Show Already Failing

2:36 pm EST September 22nd, 2009 | News | 8 Comments

Who could have predicted?

At the same time Mr. Letterman’s longtime rival, Jay Leno, experienced a somewhat predictable falloff with his new prime-time show now that he is facing full competition. Mr. Leno finished third at 10 p.m., well behind the CBS hit drama ‘C.S.I. Miami’ and the far-from-hit ABC drama, ‘Castle.’

Mr. Leno had 5.67 million viewers, his lowest total so far. (He had 18.1 million for his first show last Monday.) ‘Miami’ had 13.73 million (down 17 per cent from last year) and ‘Castle’ had 9.43 million.

Mr. Leno also dropped sharply in the 18-49 audience NBC cares most about, to a 1.8 rating. (‘Miami’ had a 4.3 and ‘Castle’ a 2.3.) NBC has maintained that any number above a 1.5 will be more than enough to produce big profits because of the lower cost of Mr. Leno’s show compared with expensive scripted dramas.

Based on his current trajectory, Leno may turn out to be the XFL of talk shows.

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8 Responses to “Jay Leno Show Already Failing”

  1. d.walker says:
    September 22, 2009 at 4:04 pm

    This is interesting, especially considering how the media was acting as if Jay Leno had just invented slice bread with this prime-time show, which was a huge slap in the face to the agreement the network made with Conan O’Brien. But you know I don’t like Conan in that time slot, he seems to have lost his edge there.

  2. Bitter Scribe says:
    September 22, 2009 at 4:49 pm

    I don’t get what’s supposed to be so special about basically repackaging the Tonight Show and airing it 90 minutes earlier. Are they counting on Boomers who don’t feel like staying up past their bedtime to watch a bunch of lame jokes?

  3. KXB says:
    September 22, 2009 at 5:04 pm

    This also shows the problem with a focus on East Coast and West Coast schedules. In Chicago, Leno comes on at 9:00 PM. He is not competing against just CBS, FOX, and ABC. He competes with whatever game is on ESPN or a local station. I usually watch a DVD of a show at that time – right now, that is Friday Night Lights. Or, I watch something I recorded and did not have a chance to watch earlier. In Chicago, people are conditioned to watch the 10:00 news, and then a late night comedy show.

    I wouldn’t write him off yet. While his humor is not my thing, he is widely recognized for an unmatched work ethic. He may tinker with the show to make it more watchable. After all, it took awhile for The Daily Show to become the show it is today.

  4. Seth 4:10 says:
    September 22, 2009 at 5:12 pm

    Bring back LIFE!

    (also, I still wear my Enforcers jersey)

  5. Duros62 says:
    September 22, 2009 at 5:32 pm

    Are they counting on Boomers who don’t feel like staying up past their bedtime to watch a bunch of lame jokes?

    I think we have a winner, no more calls.

  6. Sean D. Martin says:
    September 22, 2009 at 7:35 pm

    Remember, the goal of the Jay Leno Show isn’t to win it’s time slot. The goal is to have a show so cheap to produce that it’s more profitable than a one-hour drama.

    And by that measure, it may still be quite successful.

  7. Krusty says:
    September 23, 2009 at 2:35 pm

    Sean, you are right, however advertisers were more than likely reluctant to buy Leno during the up front, choosing to see if it had any numbers first, and dedicating their 10pm prime buys to proven shows on CBS and ABC. NBC will come out smelling fine on this… it’s the affiliates who are taking it in the family jewels on this. With the lack of ratings, national scatter buys plus all local prime buys will be diverted to other stations, slowly killing NBC affiliates. It will also kill the late news product on those stations. As a result, NBC will become weaker across the board as people jump ship from their affiliates to watching other programming.

  8. George Taylor says:
    September 23, 2009 at 5:20 pm

    I am a big Jay Leno fan and will not tune out. But it is painful to watch Jay command the poorly designed set. Keven Ubanks is so far away he must be in a diffrent time zone. The set has lots of color and gimics but no personality. Everything is spread out like two freight cars end to end. When I watch Jay I want to get comfortable and not be straining my eyes to catch the action fifty feet away. Fire the people and redesign the set. I would gladley do it for free or go out and hire the people that designed “Americias Got Talent” or the “Oprah” set.
    Put Jay on the road for a week and fix the set.