Harry Jessell: TV’s Biggest Chance And You Blew It, Jay
January 15, 2010 by Bill Sobel
Filed under Industry News
Another of our regular contributors is Harry Jessell, founder and Editor of TVNewsCheck. Prior to launching TVNewsCheck in January 2006, Harry worked for more than 25 years as a reporter and editor for Broadcasting & Cable (formerly Broadcasting), the leading business magazine for the TV and radio industries.
TV’s Biggest Chance And You Blew It, Jay
By Harry A. Jessell
TVNewsCheck, Jan 15 2010
Hey, Jay, put a lid on it.
You have nobody to blame but yourself for the mess you and NBC have made out of latenight TV.
Last September, the fourth most-watched channel in the 500-channel universe handed you five hours of primetime and gave you an unprecedented opportunity to reinvent broadcast television and cement your place in the TV firmament.
Instead, you opted to drag the Tonight Show format to 10 o’clock and pretend it was something new. You couldn’t think outside the box that Steve Allen constructed and Johnny Carson perfected.
Last April, when Ed Ansin at WHDH Boston was making a fuss, I defended you, urging affiliates to give you a chance. Surely, you would not disappoint. You would think of something fresh, something that would save NBC and lead millions of viewers to affiliates’ late newscasts.
You had options. How about a bona fide variety hour with acts from across the broad spectrum of American culture, high brow, middle brow and low? In our fragmented media world, you could have been Ed Sullivan, the guy who anoints America’s best in opera, dance and popular music by simply allowing them to appear on your stage.
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