The End of the Jay Leno Experiment

Jay Leno is going back to late-night.

NBC is shutting down the primetime Jay Leno Show and moving their leading chin back to his old 11:30PM slot, TMZ reports. In September I said I wanted The Jay Leno Show to fail. Now it has. This is good news, for everybody.

Last fall, TIME called Jay Leno "the future of television." It wasn't because he was particularly entertaining, or bold, or revolutionary. He is really none of those things. But he was cheap. NBC was striking out with all of its new (horrible) pilots -- Knight Rider? Lipstick Jungle? My Own Worst Enemy? --  and so its executives basically gave up on storytelling. Running Jay five nights a week would cost less than a single hour of primetime drama. It was a cynical move. Fortunately, it didn't even last the winter.

Why did it fail? Well, advertising immediately fell off a cliff. NBC's 10 p.m. advertising rates were down as much as 70 percent by November. Viewership in the precious 18-49 demographic at 10 p.m. fell 45% in two months. News affiliates were in revolt because their audiences and ad revenue piggy-back on NBC's 10 p.m. audience. The fish was rotting from the head.

This move is awfully embarrassing PR for NBC. The network originally defended the Leno move because he would be recording new episodes all summer 2010 against re-runs. It's 20-degrees outside right now in the dead of winter and Leno experiment is six feet under. But something else lives. It's called ... Good television. NBC should think about making some of that.