NBC’s failed Jay Leno experiment appears to be at an end.
The ratings were dismal for the primetime hour, and the damage to NBC stations’ late news ratings infuriated affiliates nationally.
Except in Denver.
KUSA has consistently “weathered the storm better than most,” general manager Mark Cornetta has said since “The Jay Leno Show” began airing weeknights on Channel 9 in September. The Denver station actually experienced improved ratings during the Leno debacle.
Under the NBC reversal, widely rumored but as of late Friday not confirmed by the network, Leno’s show would be removed from the last hour of primetime and condensed to a half-hour, locally at 10:35 p.m. after the news. That would be followed at 11:05 p.m. by Conan O’Brien’s “Tonight Show” for a full hour, followed at 12:05 a.m. by Jimmy Fallon.
The change could be implemented Feb. 28, after NBC’s Olympics telecasts, and NBC spokesperson said.
While most NBC affiliates rejoiced at the prospect of bumping Leno from primetime, Denver’s KUSA-Channel 9 has been an anomaly.
Not that viewers love Jay Leno’s humor more here than elsewhere, but the ratings strength of the dominant NBC affiliate here historically has been greater than in most markets.
KUSA’s Cornetta declined to discuss the situation while it remains unofficial. He has said for months that, while Leno’s ratings and impact on the late news were not good in Denver, Channel 9 was more insulated than most NBC stations, with entrenched viewer habits working in KUSA’s favor.
Where some station managers have railed against the Leno numbers and expressed tremendous relief at the proposed change, Cornetta has characterized the situation as “an interesting experiment that didn’t pan out.”
At stations across the country, late news lead-in ratings for NBC affiliates are half of what they were a year ago — a disaster, since stations depend on late news advertising for as much as a third of their total revenues.
At KUSA, the 10 p.m. news ratings are flat or slightly improved since Leno became the lead-in.
Nationally, competitors have benefitted from NBC’s vulnerability. CBS affiliates were boosted by strong shows like “The Mentalist” and “The Good Wife,” which fed into CBS late newscasts with positive results. In Denver, KCNC-Channel 4 used the strength of CBS and weakness of NBC nationally to post its first total-audience win in the late local news for a week in December.
Nationally, for September through December, Leno averaged 5.34 million viewers, representing a 29 percent drop from last season, when NBC was running dramas like “Law & Order” and “ER” in that hour.
By contrast, Leno boosted KUSA in Denver during those months. According to Nielsen figures, Leno averaged 113,000 viewers at 9 p.m. on Channel 9 for the same period, among adults 18 and older, up slightly from 98,000 viewers at 9 p.m. for dramas in 2008.
The KUSA weeknight late news also showed an uptick since Leno began, averaging 181,000 adult viewers for September through December compared to 167,000 for 2008.
Going forward, KUSA’s Cornetta conceded that using the Olympics to launch new programming makes good business sense.
For NBC, the change is an embarrassing retreat from what had been promised as a long-term strategy intended to cut production costs.
Joanne Ostrow: 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com
