Jay Leno: Then and Now

September 03, 2009:

If The Jay Leno Show succeeds — where succeeding means not getting more viewers than the competition but simply increasing NBC's profit margin — it suggests a TV future in which ambitious dramas become the stuff of boutique cable, while the broadcasters become a megaphone for live events and cheap nonfiction. "If the Leno Show works," says former NBC president Fred Silverman, "it will be the most significant thing to happen in broadcast television in the last decade."

January 22, 2010:

The Jay Leno Show couldn't pull a prime-time-size audience. And when Leno went down, he took local newscasts with him (major markets like Philadelphia plummeted as much as 48 percent).