Is Jay Leno the future of television? NBC thinks so. As a matter of fact, they're counting on it. With the large television audiences of yesteryear dwindling, viewers turning to cable or the internet and recording shows on DVR - so as to skip the commercials - NBC is banking on The Jay Leno Show to solve 21st century problems of limited resources (it's cheaper to produce for an entire week than a single hour of drama). It's a radical experiment, really...the first single show to air every weeknight during prime time on a major broadcast network. If it works, '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.'
Leno, on the other hand, is not focused on the future of TV. Instead, he's planning his new show: how to organize it, how to pace it, how to distinguish it from Tonight while keeping the familiar features his old fans expect.
Read the full article, "Jay Leno Is the Future of TV. Seriously" at TIME.COM.
