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| Jay Leno, host of the Tonight Show. Cropped from Flickr image. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Ever since Comcast bought the network (which they will soon own lock, stock and barrel after GE sells its stake), things have gone from bad to worse. The only place where NBC is dominant is with its "Nightly News" with Brian Williams on weeknights. Otherwise, we'll just break them down into what the industry calls dayparts on where the network is going wrong.
Early Morning
"Today" was introduced more than 60 years ago as the first breakfast-hour news broadcast. Imitators at the other networks have come and gone, but "Today" remained the first place people watched upon waking up or going to work. Now? It's a four-hour show from 7 to 11 a.m., with different topics for different audiences.
"Today" recently lost its morning crown to ABC's "Good Morning America" because they squandered it by repeatedly shooting itself in the foot. There's the alleged arrogance of co-host Matt Lauer, who may or may not have had a hand in the bungled departure of Ann Curry, who has since moved on to other assignments at NBC News. There's also the apparent failure of Curry's replacement Savannah Guthrie to catch on with viewers.
Meanwhile, "GMA" benefited from "Today"'s troubles by exploiting co-host Robin Roberts' illness to big ratings. And CBS picked up a few new viewers to its critically-acclaimed, news-intensive morning broadcast. But not enough to get them out of third place.
Prime Time
Two of the biggest shows on network TV, "Sunday Night Football" and "The Voice", are on NBC. Unfortunately for them, the football season is over, meaning Sundays have been left to "Dateline" and Donald Trump's "Celebrity Apprentice". And the "American Idol" ripoff has also been off the air for a few weeks, and is just now returning with Usher and Shakira replacing Christina Aguilera and CeeLo Green in the swivel chairs.
Without football and the singing contest, NBC's ratings have tanked so badly that they trailed a Spanish language network in the February sweeps. "Do No Harm", "Smash" and "Deception", anyone?
As for the rest of network TV, Fox's "Idol" and ABC's "Dancing With The Stars" are fading in popularity while CBS just keeps rolling along. NBC just keeps getting left behind.
Late Night
You've heard the reports that NBC wants to replace Jay Leno with Jimmy Fallon as host of the "Tonight Show" in 2014. A couple of questions: (1) Why on earth would they want to move the one man that's been king of the late night talk shows since Johnny Carson retired? (2) Since it is speculated that "Tonight" would move to New York, why won't Fallon move to California, where the guests are? Is Lorne Michaels of "Saturday Night Live" controlling things behind the scenes? (3) Is this all a ruse for Leno to get a better deal out of NBC? It's happened before, and Conan O'Brien is now plying his trade on cable because of it.
As you can see, NBC is a disaster area right now. But there's nothing here that a Winter Olympics or a Super Bowl in the next couple of years won't fix.
UPDATE: The rumors are true. NBC has announced that Fallon is replacing Leno as host of "Tonight" come the spring of 2014, right after the network's coverage of the Winter Olympics. The show is moving to New York, and Michaels will be the executive producer. The next move is up to Leno. Will NBC chicken out like they did last time?
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