As head-scratchingly odd an idea it is to turn NBC Latenight into a 4.5 hour nightly franchise (with one hour of poker), plus 90 minutesof SNL on Saturday and another one hour poker round-up - here's a novel idea.. how about moving the NBC local news slot to 9:30, leaving the chatter uninterrupted and giving Conan a 30 minute jump on David Letterman - it doesn't seem that anyone else has noticed the real loser here...
The Actors.
Just as SAG has been limping through their non-strike, five more hours of the primetime that keeps those who are working regularly in business is being erased by NBC, at least for now. The 10pm slot, across the week, was the only one at NBC that had not been infected by the reality bug. Now, you're looking at four prime time hours of Football Night on Sunday and five hours of Leno at 10, leaving just 13 possible hours of scripted programming in prime-time each week. If Dateline, Deal or No Deal and The Biggest Loser stay on, you're down to 10 hours of a 22 hour primetime week that MIGHT have scripted programming.
This also means, AFTRA might have 12 hours to SAG's 10 in NBC Primetime.
2 Hours of Law & Order and a 2 hour comedy block on Thursdays... and you're down to 6 hours that need to be actively programmed.
Outside of summer, CBS has only 2 hours of reality programming these days. ABC has 6 or 7. And with a 15 hour weekly primetime, Fox tends to program reality into about 50% of the schedule (or slightly less less as shows cycle).
But 12 hours is a new landmark... one that should make SAG members cringe.
Read the complete post at http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/archives/2008/12/leno_move_a_kic.html