Tuned InUncategorized
The Jay Leno Show, NBC has been telling us all summer, was “comedy at 10,” not simply a second Tonight Show. Instead, what we got was a monologue, a couple taped comedy bits, an interview, a musical act, another interview and Headlines.
Somebody refresh my memory: what was The Tonight Show again? …
Tuned In
The Jay Leno Show debuts tonight at 10, and with it begins the biggest gamble in TV in years. In my cover story, I said he and his show would represent the (downsized, cheaper) future of TV whether it succeeded or failed.* Which is just as well, because I absolutely suck at predicting whether anything will succeed or …
Tuned InUncategorized
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcuE9ghAgFM&feature=player_embedded]
It all comes back around to Jay Leno today.
It doesn’t take a journalism degree to realize that this week public outbursts achieved the Rule of Threes, making them an official trend. Joe Wilson yelled “You lie!” at President Obama; Serena Williams had a …
Tuned InUncategorized
So we’ve developed a mini-ritual of watching a little of the U.S. Open with the Tuned In Jrs. before bed. Last night, we started watching the beginning of the Federer match on TiVo. Meanwhile, I checked my Twitter feed, where people were Twittering in real time about Federer having having made an amazing shot at the end of the match. We …
Tuned InUncategorized
I did a long interview with Jay Leno for my cover story on him last week. As usual, a lot of it ended up covering material and going in directions that I just didn’t have a place for in the article. But I hate transcribing interviews for nothing, so you get to read it here! What follows is not the whole interview, but some …
Tuned InUncategorized
The point of the article is that …
Tuned In
At some point, I’m going to post more excerpts from my interview with Jay Leno that didn’t make it into my cover story this week, but for now, office duties, catching up on mail and, well, actually watching TV take precedence. In the meantime, New York magazine has an insightful cover on Leno’s erstwhile late-night rival, …
Tuned In
As if you needed proof that the week before Labor Day is the slowest news week of the year, I have the cover story in TIME magazine. It’s about Jay Leno, his new show and how this big gamble and cost-saving measure represents, as the cover line says “the future of TV” (for better or worse). It’s also about the irony: NBC is making a …
Tuned InUncategorized
If you talk to people connected with The Jay Leno Show, they’ll tell you the new show will have more comedy and fewer guests, because viewers tune out the interviews in the second half of The Tonight Show. Leno often says that, in this celeb-saturated era, only a handful of guests really draw viewers anyway.
People connected with Conan …
Tuned InUncategorized
At the TV critics press tour earlier this month, NBC walked back its quick declaration of Conan O’Brien as “The New King of Late Night.” And you can see why. Last week, David Letterman beat Conan O’Brien in total viewers. Wait, let me elaborate: a week of Letterman reruns beat a week of O’Brien originals.
NBC will argue, and not …
Tuned In
More Jay Leno Show news: Jay-Z will perform on Leno’s first show Sept. 14, together with Kanye West and Rihanna.
Ironically, Leno has been saying the new show will probably have fewer musical guests and more comedy than The Tonight Show. Reason: musical guests get the studio audiences pumped up, but they don’t actually draw (or retain) …
Tuned In
Jay Leno showed up before TV critics in Pasadena yesterday and spilled some more details about The Jay Leno Show, which will be airing on NBC a thousand hours every week starting Sept. 14. Among the plans for the new show:
* NBC News’ own Brian Williams will contribute comedy in a recurring segment about stories not good enough for the …
Tuned InUncategorized
NBC has just unveiled its website for the upcoming Jay Leno Show, which includes a couple of behind-the-scenes blogs, a page devoted to Jay’s cars and a Leno routine about “Internet fatigue.”
As if to illustrate this last point, the site’s most curious feature is a live 24-hour webcam feed of the under-construction stage set. A quick …
