Leno Leaves, NBC's Wobbly Business Model Returns

Announcements don’t get much more dramatic than the one NBC made today about yanking The Jay Leno show from its 10 o’clock time period just three months after the former host of The Tonight Show began his one-hour comedy, skit show.

Yes, NBC TV honcho Jeff Gaspin told an overflow gathering of reporters on Sunday’s TV Critics Tour in Pasadena, Calif., NBC’s 200-odd affiliates had forced the change because prime time ratings tanked. The reason? Their 11 pm news programs, a nice little profit center for most stations, was suddenly hemorrhaging through no fault of their own.

But what Gaspin didn’t say – at least not so boldly – was that NBC had also made an abrupt u-turn on its plans to remake a broken business model for making TV shows. Prime time pilots are made for $10 million, shows for $3 million or so, and viewing audiences are going south. Gaspin’s predecessor, Jeff Zucker, had made the fateful decision to bring in Leno, and to shuttle Law and Order and other 10 pm shows out of their time slots, by arguing that ratings would go down but so would costs.

So much for that idea. Coupled with the announcement that Leno was taking his $500,000 a week show off the air at 10 pm., was the announcement that NBC was going back to the good old ways that networks have always operated. Namely, big producers, big stars, and cross your fingers the shows work. How about these for some biggies to whom NBC said it is throwing its bucks the next few weeks in hopes of finding TV lightning in a bottle – Jerry Bruckheimer, David E. Kelly and J.J. Abrams, who will direct a pilot called “Undercovers” about CIA agents. The last time Abrams directed a pilot, it only cost $13 million.

Of course, that pilot was Lost, which was an immediate and big (although not terribly long lasting) hit on ABC. Clearly, that’s what NBC is hoping Abrams will bring to NBC as well. Then again, they’re hoping the same thing for a remake of “The Rockford Files” that they’ve also ordered for what’s going to be a pricey sum. We all know how their last retread effort — i.e. “Knight Rider” — turned out.

Read more at BusinessWeek Media Blog