Can this Jay Lendo debacle be salvaged?

[K.C.]

There's a few options that have been proposed:

#1 - cancel Lendo out right and air second-runs of NBC shows until they can get some midseason replacements up and running (at which point I would suggest re-airing Journeyman on one of the nights...no one watched it anyway, so it's basically new programming to 95% of the audience).

#2 - move local news to 10PM on NBC affiliates, Lendo to 10:30 as the first in a late night talk block of Lendo, Conan, and Fallon.

#3 - move Lendo to 8PM and push everything else back on each night.

#4 - Do nothing, go down with the ship.

#5 - Put the show on hiatus; retool it (possibly make it more variety show-ish).

#6 - Keep the 10PM talk show, but replace Lendo with a new host.



I think the move is option #2.

[TooLowBrow]

wanda sykes is getting her own late night show on fox?!!?

[brettmojo]

I'm going with just watching something else.

[K.C.]

I'm going with just watching something else.

Channel your inner-NBC exec.

[paulisded]

Despite what they're telling us, they do have shows they can put on in that timeslot. They just cancelled Southland without even airing a single episode of the season. The various Law and Orders don't work in the early time slots anyway, so there's three nights filled right there (four if they rushed L&O CI back into production). Friday is a ratings wasteland anyway, so just extend Dateline another hour.

[Tenbatsuzen]

Channel your inner-NBC exec.

*does a couple of rails of blow and then demands Hayden Pannettierre and a bucket of glycerine to his office*

[Tenbatsuzen]

The thing is - isn't Leno really cheap to produce as opposed to episodic TV?

[IMSlacker]

When they were talking about this on R&F, someone (Dave?) brought up the idea of turning
Lendo into a weekly show. That seems like a pretty good idea. He could probably at least come up with a petty killer monolouge once a week, like when he used to guest host for Carson.

[IMSlacker]

The thing is - isn't Leno really cheap to produce as opposed to episodic TV?

It is, but the problem is that the poor lead in is killing the evening news ratings for the affiliates.

[landarch]

I just don't get the hate for the show. OK the ratings aren't there and whatever, but I have enjoyed every episode I've seen. Of course, they're all DVRd so I can ff the slow parts.....

[K.C.]

It is, but the problem is that the poor lead in is killing the evening news ratings for the affiliates.

That's the whole issue. Local news is getting killed on the affiliates because of Leno as the lead-in to where there's serious rumblings about affiliates jumping ship.