TV Ratings

Tuned In Tuned In

NBC's Conanundrum: Is Jay the Smart Choice?

Let me take off my TV-critic hat for a minute and put on my TV-business hat. Everyone’s assumption now—a well-founded one, it seems—is that, forced to choose between Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien, NBC will pick Jay. Leaving aside fairness, funniness or cosmic justice, is that the right business pick?

Short-term, I have to say: …

Tuned In Tuned In

Jay Leno a Failure; Also, Jay Leno a Success

Love him or hate him, success or failure, Jay Leno taking over NBC’s 10 p.m. slot is the biggest TV story of the year. And now that he’s been on-air for a couple months, the assessments of his ratings performance have been coming in.

On the one hand, Leno’s been the subject of one bad ratings story after another for weeks, as he some …

Tuned In Tuned In

Leno TiVo-Proof? Not So, Says TiVo

Now that the TV-cost-reduction experiment otherwise known as The Jay Leno Show is in its third week, the numbers are starting to accumulate. After a big debut, his average nightly take has been bouncing around 6 million or so—above, but not a lot above, the 5 million he averaged on Tonight—depending on the strength of his NBC lead-in …

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