When NBC announced its brilliant plan to move Jay Leno to 10:00PM (and preempt local news in many markets), the brass were patting each other on the back. Thinking of all the money they would save by putting a 'cheap' talk show into a prime-time slot had them rubbing their hands with glee. Furthermore, they get to keep both Leno and Conan---genius! Shear genius!

Of course, nobody bothered to ask the audiences.

After a couple of nights of big ratings, Leno sank beneath the waves to join Conan's Tonight Show underwater. Serial philanderer Dave Letterman surged into first place...

Give Leno his due--he's no prima donna. He in fact jokes about impending cancellation on his show. NBC has been doing its best imitation of Janet Napolitano---no, no, no--the system worked!.

"As we have said all along, Jay’s show has performed exactly as we anticipated on the network," the network said in a statement. "It has, however, presented some issues for our affiliates. Both Jay and the show are committed to working closely with them to find ways to improve the performance."

I guess I find it amazing that TV execs--getting paid the big bucks, are so utterly clueless about the television market. Along with my own commentary, I read dozens of other blogs who were equally dubious about the entire scheme.

No one watched the Tonight Show because it was a great show. They watched it because it was the last vestige of appointment television--a benign habit for late-night loungers. As long as NBC kept main-lining the junk at 11:30, the habit persisted, but the recent shakeup served as involuntary rehab, as viewers shaken out of their somnambulism, grabbed the remote and found Everybody Loves Raymond reruns.

New habits.

What are the chances that NBC can put Humpty-dumpty back together again? Virtually nil in my opinion.