Thoughts on NBC's supposedly doomed late night future

I always thought that there was something a little off about the whole Jay Leno narrative. You know how it goes: Funniest standup alive turns into atrocious laughmonger, purveyor of Dancing Itos and Jaywalking, pandering to the lowbrow tastes of the masses ...

Now, with the announcement that NBC has decided to move on, Leno's brand of humor suddenly is being portrayed as indispensable, vital, having that certain je ne c'est quoi that keeps the NBC network from dropping completely off the map.

The truth is that Jimmy Fallon, or someone like him, was an inevitable next step for NBC, which has called Leno one of its own, not for 16 years, but 22 years, ever since he was named Johnny Carson's permanent guest host in 1986. Though it is always poignant to recall that early chapter where Leno was supposedly on the outs with Carson's people and had to work his way back to the couch by appearing on his dear friend Dave's show ... how long was that purgatory, really? Two years? Letterman signed on "Late Night" in 1982. Leno was made PGH four years later. And in between, you have to figure, was time for Leno to rehab himself not just on Letterman's couch but Carson's. So all told, Rick Ludwin, the long-suffering NBC executive overseeing late night, has been listening to Robocomic rattle off jokes for more than a quarter century.

It's time to move on.

When I changed my mind about Jay Leno, it was not out of some newfound appreciation for his barstool brand of humor but respect for the way he'd made a show that he was comfortable with and his viewers were comfortable with. That's all he needed to in order to recapture the No. 1 position that the host of "The Tonight Show" should always occupy. The lesson of the Leno years is the one Leno himself learned to tell to reporters: Do your show. Don't do someone else's. That show he was doing in 1992-93 ... whatever the hell that was, it wasn't one he wanted to do or we wanted to watch. At least on a good night, "Tonight" is the show to watch, and given how much NBC has invested in its late-night franchise, that's how it should be.

Leno is not "The Tonight Show," merely its latest and, by all measures, second greatest occupant. (Sorry, but despite my great respect for Jack Paar, most of my documentary evidence of his unparalleled wit is contained in his three books that I've read, and those have not exactly aged well. Would that Paar had saved more of those kinescope reels.) No credit should be withheld, but credit should be tempered by the fact that Jay took over the most powerful institution in late night, one that predated him and Johnny and Jack and Steverino, and will long outlive him.

It's been said that Leno turned around his fortunes. It would be more true to say that he used every tool at his disposal -- the media, the affiliate network, the vast NBC infrastructure -- to reinvent himself. (O'Brien would learn to do the same.) Above all, Leno used the crew that was there, the people he began to lean on after his ridiculous manager, Helen Kushnick, was removed from the premises.

I've been wanting to write a profile of Debbie Vickers, his executive producer, a KU graduate and the person who showed Jay how to be a broadcaster. She's allowed one profile in 16 years (oddly enough, to David Handelman, who later profiled me). She's retiring after Leno leaves, I'm told, so my window is closing fast.

Anyway, I was thinking through the scenarios by which Leno could possibly hope to replicate the experience of being a late-night network TV host somewhere other than NBC. Here's what I came up with.

The ABC scenario: The network goes to its affiliates and asks for an extra half hour to do a new Leno-Kimmel block. Most of the affiliates agree. Some (I'm guessing is Kansas City included here) say, "Uh uh, we're making far too much money with reruns of Two and a Half Men." ABC does its usual stellar job of promotion that has helped make Jimmy Kimmel a household name. Then on he goes. And ... well, he's not going to get the best guests, he's not going to get the youngest audience, and he's not going to be No. 1 out of the blocks unless Conan (who will have a head start on him) stumbles badly, which he won't because he's been doing this almost as long as Leno has.

The Fox scenario: My guess is that if Fox asked its affiliates to cut out an hour of late-night syndicated programming to run Jay Leno's show, it would be a net loss for most of them. The network might as well tell them to hand over 10 percent of their profits. But they would do it (provided Fox sweetened the pot for them) because what the hell, they did it for Chevy. Still, Fox would be spending money like mad, compensating affiliates, compensating Leno, building a new studio home for him ... and would still be at the mercy of the local news ratings. Remember, Fox affiliates' newscasts begin an hour early, which means the network has a gap of 60 to 90 minutes between the end of prime time and the start of Leno's show, depending on when they air it. If the affiliates' local newscasts are running third or fourth in the ratings, like they are here, Fox has no chance of keeping up with "Nightline," even if Oprah were the host instead of Leno.

The Sony scenario: Cable and syndication make no sense. Leno will be 60 by the time he starts. He cannot build a big enough audience in cable, and with his age, after the first few magazine covers only Parade and AARP will want to interview him. So he'd have no promotion, no affiliates' chain, and he'd be available in 80 percent of homes instead of 100 percent. Where is the upside?

The fact is that late night has become commodified like all other dayparts, and no one entity commands attention levels like before. Even if Letterman were to lift his Garboesque curtain of silence, I doubt he'd get more than a handful of takers wanting a Q-and-A. (Me, obviously, and TIME and TV Guide.) In such a fragmented, diversified environment, it's asking an awful lot of any one media outlet to build a powerhouse just based on a brand name. It wouldn't be as awful as Katie Couric going to CBS, but it wouldn't be Dave-to-CBS all over again, either.

I think Jay Leno knows this. I think the fact that Ben Silverman is ready to move on means that he has already calculated the cost of keeping NBC's two late-night powerhouses just as they are. At some point, there are diminishing returns, and by the time that happens, in today's media environment, it may just be too late. Moving to Fallon is a gamble, for sure, but not as big a gamble as doing nothing.

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