Live From the TCA Press Tour: NBC's Shaky New Strategy

I’ve only just arrived in Los Angeles, where I’ll be for the next week attending the winter session of the TV Critics Association press tour, but there’s already much to report, courtesy of NBC’s announcement that they’re throwing in the towel with respect to Jay Leno’s failed primetime talk show now that it's clear the whole experiment has been a dismal disaster.

Despite an earlier pledge to give The Jay Leno Show a 52-week commitment, the new plan, according to Jeff Gaspin, Chairman of NBC Universal Television Entertainment, will see Leno’s show move to 11:35 p.m. in an abbreviated half-hour format, followed by Conan O’Brien’s Tonight Show at 12:05 a.m. and Jimmy Fallon’s Late Night at 1:05 a.m. (although he stressed that negotiations with all parties are still underway and this is not yet a done deal). If it goes ahead, this new lineup will take effect after the Olympics.

To me, this seems like a quick-fix band-aid strategy that's doomed to fail. Will Leno reclaim his late-night crown at 11:35 p.m.? Seems unlikely. And moving Conan a half-hour later will hardly remedy the Tonight Show's ailing ratings.

Conan can't be happy with the way this has played out, since Leno's primetime debacle quite literally sucked the air out of his long-coveted shot at The Tonight Show. O'Brien has yet to agree to this new plan, and may well be contemplating a move to a different network (most likely Fox, which would love to get into the late-night game). And both Leno and O'Brien have been so battered by this whole thing that viewers may well see both of them as damaged goods and stay away from both shows.

But what if the move works, and Leno does return to his former ratings glory at 11:35 p.m. while Conan continues to sink? It's certainly not outside the realm of possibility that NBC could expand Leno's show to a full hour, and move Conan back to his old 12:35 p.m. time slot. At this point, anything could happen, so stay tuned.

The million-dollar question, though, is what NBC plans to air in that vacant 10 p.m. slot five nights a week, since they apparently went into this fiasco with no solid back-up plan. Gaspin admitted he really didn’t have an answer for that yet, although I suspect in the short-term it will probably be extra episodes of Dateline, or perhaps a return of the Law & Order shows to 10 p.m.

Other options include a new lawyer show starring Doctor Who's David Tennant, called Rex Is Not Your Lawyer, that may or may not be ready in time to air this spring, as well as a new season of critically acclaimed but low-rated Friday Night Lights and possibly episodes of Law & Order: Criminal Intent, which currently airs on the NBC Universal-owned USA Network.

This leaves the network in a precarious position until next season, which is glutted with development of a pile of new fall shows, including a Los Angeles-based Law & Order spin-off, new dramas from J.J. Abrams, David E. Kelley and Jerry Bruckheimer, and remakes of The Rockford Files and British crime classic Prime Suspect.

Anyhow, like the old Catskills comics used to say, I’ll be here all week, so check back for regular updates of what’s going down here at the tour.