Media Scribbler

Jay Leno is about to shake the television landscape merely by changing timeslots.

According The New York Times writer Bill Carter, who wrote an incredible book called “The Late Shift” about Leno’s original ascent to The Tonight Show after a protracted public battle for the slot with David Letterman),  the longtime Tonight Show host is signing a new deal with NBC to host a show every weeknight, only 90 minutes earlier.

Conan O’Brien has been slated to take over hosting duties for the hallowed 11:30 p.m. time slot on NBC for years, with Leno agreeing at the time that he would retire from the show in 2009. But in recent months that decision has been publicly debated by network execs, especially as they grew nervous about the strength of the also-long-expected show filling O’Brien’s slot, hosted by former SNL vet Jimmy Fallon.

The new deal was apparently vetted heavily to Leno by NBC Universal head Jeff Zucker, who has been the target of most critics as the Leno retirement loomed closer and Leno considered other deals with other networks and even Sony Television. And with NBCU’s recent budget woes, Zucker is now taking another chance — putting a chat host in primetime every weeknight.

But really, how well is NBC doing at 10 nowadays, with “Heroes” faltering in a big way, “ER” on its way out and a bunch of quickly-canceled new dramas? Are people dropping the Big 5 nets at 10 to jump to cable programming or early local newscasts?

And has an appetite for chat and monologues been shown on some cable news networks? That may be apparent for sister cable network MSNBC, who now has Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow’s liberal-loving court jesting scoring better in younger demos than conservative strongholds Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity. And a lot of young demo folks who never watch Leno or Letterman are now skipping the local newscast and diving into a similar format over on Comedy Central with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.

Unlike his NBCU coworkers at MSNBC, Leno hasn’t burned bridges with conservative viewers. He can continue his fairly apolitical razing of everyone at an hour when people aren’t going to bed. And best of all for him, no more comparing and contrasting to Letterman!

Where this could get even more interesting for NBC is if Fallon really does fall flat. Do they treat him like they did O’Brien and give him lots of time to find his niche? Or will we suddenly get a repeat of Leno’s show from earlier? And if Leno does score in the ratings, would ABC try to follow suit? Personally, I’d love to see Jimmy Kimmel earlier and the unsung Craig Ferguson taking on Letterman.

Peter Lassally, who has produced shows for Johnny Carson, Letterman and Ferguson, told the NYT that NBC came to Carson in the late 1980’s with a similar idea, but Carson rejected it.

“It’s all different now,” Lassally said. “The economic factors have changed so much it makes complete sense for NBC to try this.”

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