Okay, so it’s not news, per se. But NBC has decided to put the Jay Leno Show out of our misery as of February 12 – not coincidentally, right on top of the Winter Olympics. Which basically gives NBC two more weeks to figure out how to fill the five hours per week that Leno was taking up. The announcement was made this morning by Jeff Gaspin, chairman of NBC Universal Television Entertainment, at the NBC executive session of the TV Critics Press Tour. Gotta give the guy credit – he didn’t waste time. He literally started the press conference with the announcement.
So why do you care? NBC is in deep trouble. Unless you were among the few who were actually watching the show, you probably don’t. But it does mean that NBC is going to be one of those TV “destinations” to approach with caution (assuming you decide to approach it at all).
Consider, if CBS’ Nina Tassler can suggest that violence against women is not a concern for her company – and they’re on the top of the heap – just imagine what NBC is going to do to get eyeballs.
One would hope that this would result in intelligent, exciting, dynamic shows, some with more adult themes and behavior, some with more family-safe themes and behavior. Alas, most likely it will result in more blood, more T and A, and more half-baked pseudo-reality.
Some of the new fall pilots were announced at the press conference, and – not surprisingly – two (Prime Suspect and Rockford Files) are re-makes and a third is Kindred, by David E. Kelley, about lawyers (meaning it’s essentially a re-make). Granted, it costs a lot of money to make a show that doesn’t get viewers and it is insanely difficult to make good television.
But what generally gets attention is break-out TV. Remember Desperate Housewives? Lost? The Office? These are all excellent shows that were different from anything else on at the time. Heroes was utterly different when it first came on.
During the press conference Angela Bromstad, NBC president of primetime entertainment, said that to get audiences back to NBC, they had to put on good, quality programming. But going back to the TV well repeatedly seldom means good television.
So we’ll have to see what happens. I have no problem with shows that have more adult themes and behavior, as long as there are sufficient options for families with younger viewers, and as long as the violence, sex, foul language, commercialism, whatever, is not gratuitous. Even apart from the moral issues, gratuitous “bad stuff”is usually a sign of lazy writing, and that doesn’t make for good TV, no matter what your stance is on this stuff.
Anne Louise Bannon
Your Family Viewer
