Why Won't Leno Work?

The biggest disappointment for me this fall TV season has been, I'm sorry to say, The Jay Leno Show. But it appears I'm not alone in feeling that way. NBC affiliates are griping about the poor lead-in to their local news. Viewers are tuning out. And even Jay made a glancing comment about his show's slippage in his Jay Leno's Garage website. If the current show was a car in Jay's collection, it would be the Stanley Steamer: it's taking an awful long time to get started.

Critics are taking their swipes, and Simon Domenco offers his reasons why the show is failing in Advertising Age. I agree with most of Domenco's points, although I argue that NBC didn't have much of a brand identity before now anyway, except maybe as the Law and Order channel. But from the point of view of someone who must sit through it along side the offerings of other networks five nights a week in master control, I can't help but notice certain things that maybe others don't. I offer these points.

NBC is not targeting the core audience. Who is Jay's audience? Widely defined, it's men and woman ages 35-64. These are people who grew up with Carson, SNL's early days, Monty Python, and remember Bob Hope Christmas specials and Dean Martin sliding down the pole every week. They turn up the volume when Don Rickles walks out, and they wish Robin Williams would just do a stand up routine. They like newer stuff, like The Office and 30 Rock, and maybe even take in the guilty pleasure of Family Guy, but they can't name a current stand up comic, (who can?) and they really have had enough of rap and hiphoppers.

But the core Leno audience is much easier to define: the guys who log in to Jay Leno's Garage. They're a fiftyish bunch who are generally middle class with hair gaining a touch of gray and collars stained slightly blue. Politically moderate to conservative, but still holding some liberal idealism in their hearts, they like political humor when it's funny, they can read and can interpret the news for themselves, and resent having everything on the air being some form of product placement. With that in mind, Leno is failing because...

*It's competing with The Daily Show and The Cobert Report. NBC was so worried about the other three broadcast nets they forgot there's a whole other world of media out there already filling the need for comedy at that time. (Or anytime) These shows are overtly political, pointedly satirical, and sharp as a knife. The hosts aim for the jugular, while Jay has to play softball. Take that interview Jay did with Rush Limbaugh. Total fluff. He spent the fist two minutes talking about Rush's weight loss. What is this, Valerie Bertinelli on Regis and Kelly? Come on, Jay, stick a fork in him! But no, Jay has to worry about offending somebody. Cobert does not. In fact, Rush would never set foot on Cobert's stage for fear of being barbecued. Now that's comedy in prime time.

*The production schedule is too tight. The show is taped in California at 5:00PM. (I could be wrong, as these things are subject to change, and there are occasional double-taping days where two shows are taped in one day in order to accommodate holidays, Jay's stand up schedule, etc...) That's 8:00 in the East. The show airs at 10. That means that there's an hour to "rewind the tape" as it were (Everything is on hard drive nowadays, but I'm sure they roll a backup tape as well.) and clean up any goofs and time the segments and get those timings to the affiliates so that your local station knows when the local breaks hit. That's assuming everything goes off without a hitch. No blown lights, no dead mics, all the guests are on time and don't drop the F-bomb on stage. The moment anything goes wrong and the director has to "stop tape" the segment timings are off, and the director has less than an hour to ram the show through post production to cut the F-bombs and edit the show segments into a viewable product. It's a meat grinder production line similar to Entertainment Tonight and The Insider, and I can't imagine a crew wanting to put up with this for any great length of time, and based on the number of times I haven't had timings for the local breaks, I'd say it's happening too often. Viewers are complaining the show feels "cheap." It's not cheap; it's just being thrown together with a deadline pressure almost as bad as your local news. It's the price you pay for trying to do a late show in a prime time slot.

*Knock off the name dropping. The guests are all big names for the sake of having big names on the show. The ultimate example is Michelle Obama on the Ten @ Ten segment. OK, that one is forgivable, but for the most part, these people have had nothing to say. Oh, and opening with the Kayne West apology... please. Everybody knew that was a set-up. And again, remember Jay's core audience. Did true Leno fans even know who this guy was? Book guests who can tell stories and be interesting. Please.

*Drop the plugs. Hell, there's even a segment called "Earn Your Plug." We know the guest is there to sell a movie or TV show or "latest project," but could we at least try to take the cynicism out of it? When it was time for a live spot on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, Ed handled the commercials because he was damn good at it, and it signaled to the audience "this is a commercial," and the audience responded with, "Oh, that's OK. I accept your commercial as a break from the show." Having guests race a Ford hybrid around a track should be more fun, but it somehow comes off as mere product placement to me. Maybe if they didn't do it every night...

*Put the show in a more intimate venue suited for Leno's style. Jay works nightclubs, comedy clubs, the courthouse square in Wilmington, Ohio. It's hard to be funny in that barn they've got him in now. The only time a comedian should be working a crowd bigger than 200 is when he's on the deck of an aircraft carrier.

Oh yeah, and let's not forget the baseball playoffs are shredding viewing habits right now, and against Monday Night Football NBC should just roll a rerun and be done with it. It would certainly be cheaper. That was whole point of this Jay at Ten thing, right?