everyone hates jay leno

NBC fired Conan O’Brien as host of the Tonight Show because he couldn’t beat David Letterman, something Jay Leno had done for years. So NBC made a tough choice, and even though they would lose hundreds of millions of dollars, they decided to bring Leno back so he could be number 1 in late night again! And the plan worked! For 6 days!

For the first time since Jay Leon returned to 11:30, The Tonight Show trailed Late Show in the early metered market numbers (3.5 rating for Letterman versus 3.2 for Leno).  In the 25 markets with local People Meters Leno held a slim edge with adults 18-49, but he did yesterday as well and when the numbers for the broader national market were factored in,  Late Show wound up leading Tonight Show in the 18-49 demo, too.

This is no surprise of course, because it’s NBC. Their own website (click the “shows” tab) is filled with such sadness and failure, it’s almost like they’re being sarcastic. They have 12 “Classic Shows”, and two of those aired on CBS. Every single show on their “Recent Favorites” was canceled almost instantly, and I never even heard of 4 of them.

There are only two qualifications to be on a list called “Current Shows”. Be “current”, and a “show” a viewer could watch. NBC lists the Olympics twice and the Golden Globes, which are neither. I don’t mean to brag but I think I could do a better job at running NBC than the people they have now. I at least understand where I am in time, which is more than they could say.