NBC's Leno Experiment Is the Most Important Drama of This Season - Simon Applebaum - MediaBizBloggers

Circle September 14, 10 p.m. on your calendar as opening night of the, repeat the, best TV industry drama of the year ahead. You guessed it: Jay Leno, five primetime weeknights at 10 on NBC.

No matter what buzz TV critics and observers want to spread about other notable fall season newcomers, whether Glee, Modern Family, Flash Forward, Vampire Diariesor Community, or what speculation flows over who will win the clash of Dancing With The Starsagainst So You Think You Can DanceTuesday nights, one situation rises above the rest. Can Leno, the former Tonight Showhost, make 10 p.m. talk/variety hour's must-see TV?

There's no question NBC is betting heavily that the answer is yes, having spent the last few years in fourth place among the broadcast networks, coming up with few mass appeal programs over than span beyond Sunday Night Footballand Olympics coverage. Just as important, its Leno decision could be a make-or-break for broadcast TV as we know it, at a time when collectively, broadcast nets find it a difficult proposition to be seen by at least one-third of the available viewing audience on any given night, any month of the year, while more than half the American public on any given night watch a cable network, and increasingly on some nights, between 60 and 70 percent.

NBC has some semi-precedents to go on with turning 10 p.m. over to Leno. In 1962, Jack Paar (another former Tonighthost) hosted a talk/variety hour at 10. That program ran for three years, did solid ratings and would have run longer had Paar not decided to discontinue it in 1965. Four years after Paar's last episode, ABC graduated Dick Cavett from weekday mornings to 10 p.m. three nights a week (Mondays/Tuesdays/Fridays). Despite positive reviews and big star power, Cavett's primetime hour lasted only four months.

Broadcast TV was everything when Paar and Cavett invaded primetime. Now viewers have lots of choice, including USA, TNT, FX and Comedy Central with increasing amounts of original material, much of it at 10 p.m. Besides NBC's ratings woes, Leno is invading primetime in the thick of a local TV news crisis, where stations around the country are eliminating newscasts, anchorpeople and news staff because of a collapse in local ad sales.

Leno and his production team say the show will take the best features from Tonight, such as "Headlines" and "Jaywalking," throw in pieces from a group of regular contributors (including D.L. Hughley and NBC Nightly Newsanchor Brian Williams) and celebrity interviews such as Jerry Seinfeld on opening night. If you know Leno's reputation, you know he'll work like the dickens to make the best show possible, and promote it to the ends of the earth.

The one thing you can say for sure is that Leno's program, success or not, will transform broadcast TV either way. If it works, more cost-cutting five-night-a-week series will occupy primetime. ABC must be salivating at the opportunity to move Nightlinefrom late-night to the 10 p.m. hour, moving up Jimmy Kimmel Live to 11:35 p.m. in the process to battle Letterman, Conan (and newcomers Monique and George Lopez). More five-night shows on broadcast means more top-quality scripted programming moves over to cable. If Leno doesn't work, NBC affiliates will be on the warpath for change, afraid their local 11 p.m./10 p.m. news ratings will go down the toilet. They will apply pressure and make no bones about it.

So circle Sept. 14 at 10 p.m., grab some refreshments and settle in to watch the big drama of this TV season ahead. You'll be well entertained before it's all over.

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Another observation or two from the passing parade:

***Anyone listen to these "1-877-KARS for KIDS" radio spots running in New York and elsewhere? If the song in these announcements doesn't drive you crazy, the fact that these spots, inviting people to donate their autos for charity, don't specify what the charity is and how it impacts kids, should. Anyone from the Better Business Bureau listening?

***"Death ends a life. But it does not end a relationship." Robert Anderson started I Never Sang For My Father, his play and movie, with those two sentences. Death, in the form of pancreatic cancer, ended Don Hewitt's life earlier this month, but it does not end the relationship we have with television news he established. In a 50-year career with CBS, Hewitt directed the medium's first nightly newscast (Douglas Edwards); the first weekly documentary series (See It Now); the first live Presidential convention and debate coverage, and was the CBS Evening Newswith Walter Cronkite's first executive producer. All this before creating 60 Minutesand presiding over TV's first – and best – primetime newsmagazine hour for more than three decades. Hewitt was the mold-maker/breaker of televised news, and we are all more informed people for his accomplishments. Death ended Don Hewitt's life, but it does not end a relationship. No way.

Simon Applebaum hosts/produces Tomorrow Will Be Televised, the weekly Internet radio program covering the TV scene. Tomorrow runs Mondays from 3-4 p.m. Eastern time/noon-1 p.m. Pacific time over www.blogtalkradio.com. Simon cal be reached at simonapple04@yahoo.com.

Read all Simon’s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at Tomorrow Will Be Televised - MediaBizBloggers.