Leno to 10 PM

[Scott Fybush]

Paul Anderson wrote:

> Why wouldn't WHDH do that?  Are their ratings for the 10 PM WLVI news 
> that good that they wouldn't mind saving the extra cost of producing 
> that hour?  They could just put something else on WLVI at 10.

True - heck, they could even do 11 PM on WLVI in that scenario. (Though 
surely the incremental cost of putting on the hour at 10 is close to 
zilch as long as the crew is already there for the 11.)

> Do you think NBC will allow stations to run Jay Leno after news at 10?  
> Would stations have the leverage to change schedules like they did years 
> ago?
> 
> Remember in the late 60s, after networks were only allowed to program 
> three hours of prime-time between 7 and 11, that some network shows 
> still started at 7:30 and stations had the 10:30-11 PM slot to fill?  
> Could you imagine that happening now?  I remember WNHC New Haven 
> (channel 8) running Alfred Hitchcock Presents as their lead-in to their 
> 11 PM news.  Boy, have times changed.  Stations might now figure their 
> local news is more valuable than Leno at 10.

I'm thinking the NBC O&Os could end up leading the way on this one - 
WNBC was the first station I thought of in this scenario.

I'm thinking that *if* this were to happen, it would be an optional sort 
of arrangement. I can't imagine the Central or Mountain stations sliding 
their late news ahead to 9 PM - it's my sense that the Fox stations 
doing news at 9 in those time zones don't do nearly as well as their 10 
PM brethren in Eastern and Pacific. Nor can I see the O&Os that do well 
at 11, like KNBC, wanting to shift things around. Then there's WCAU in 
Philadelphia, which produces a 10 under contract to Tribune's WPHL.

Conversely, there are stations in odd duopoly arrangements that would 
probably love this - the NBC stations in Fort Wayne and Duluth are 
co-owned with those markets' ABC and CBS stations, respectively, and 
already have weird work-arounds to handle their 11 PM shows. In Fort 
Wayne, for instance, they do a 10 PM show on the CW and My subchannels, 
tape it, and replay it at 11 on NBC while they have a live newscast on ABC.

However this plays out, it's fascinating to me - I came of age, 
TV-viewing-wise, in the 70s, after the Prime-Time Access Rule, so for 
me, prime time has ALWAYS been 8-11, followed by 30-35 minutes of news 
and Tonight/Nightline/Whatever CBS Is Showing. I sense that this move is 
only the first crack in the crumbling of that system...

s