NBC moves Leno back to 11:35 slot

A major television experiment has failed, and a move has been made by one of the major broadcast networks to fix the problem.

A major television experiment has failed, and a move has been made by one of the major broadcast networks to fix the problem.

Listen:
[audio: 100111TMNBC.mp3]

NBC has announced it’s moving Jay Leno back to 11:35 week nights after his 10 o’clock slot failed to gain viewership. Chris Harper is a professor of mass media at Temple University. He says the sale of NBC Universal could have prompted the change.

Harper: I think that the recent merger with Comcast really put NBC on the firing line. Comcast clearly looked at the numbers told NBC you have to fix this and I think that merger really put pressure on Jeff Zucker, the head of NBC to come up with a fix and come up with one fast and that’s what happened.

Ratings for Leno’s ten o’clock timeslot were down by about 30% which hurt affiliates 11 o’clock newscasts. The change will mean later starts for the Conan O’Brien and Jimmy Fallon shows – after the network’s Olympics coverage.