NBC’s Boston affiliate, WHDH-TV, has decided to run a 10 p.m. newscast instead of the network’s planned Jay Leno show in the fall, according to Variety. Station chief Ed Ansin told the Boston Globe he doesn’t believe the late-night host will be “effective” in prime time, which would be “detrimental” to the bottom line of WHDH’s 11 o’clock news program; instead, Ansin plans to run two hours of news back-to-back leading into the Conan O’Brien-hosted Tonight Show. NBC retaliated by threatening to strip WHDH of its network affiliation, and is reportedly considering a transfer of its flagship programming to the local Telemundo channel, WNEU.
Apr 3
2009
02:29 AM ET
Boston NBC affiliate says 'no' to Leno
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Wow–The writing is on the wall here…If Leno can’t muster the support of THE STATE HE WAS BORN IN what does this tell you about what the other affiliates will be contemplating?
Let’s see how many other stations bail on Jay. The Boston station seems to be solidly behind Conan–Go figure, he’s from MASS too.
Paco
Yeah, Leno’s from Andover. This means his own mother won’t be able to watch him.
THANK GOODNESS JAY NEEDS TO BREAK FROM TV GO BACK ON THE ROAD. ANY WHERE BUT 10 PM ON TV .
Wow, that’s really irritating. I’m not crazy over the idea of Leno in primetime (queue the death of original programming), but I certainly don’t like the idea of affiliates being prima donnas and picking and choosing whatever they want to show with no audience choice. I’d write a letter if I lived there even without planning on watching.
Being from Boston this gets me pretty angry. I was looking forward to watching it. We already have two other channels with news at 10:00. Channel 7 has news from 4:00 – 6:30 now 10:00-11:30, there is just not that much news in Boston.
Wait a minute. I live in Boston. Does that mean I’d have to watch The Office and Chuck and 30Rock on the Spanish channel? Will it be in Spanish? WTF is going on?
Yes, who in Boston DOESN’T want to watch local news at 11:30 or 12? lol WSBK-TV38 is available… independent, though owned by Viacom.
Why don’t they do 30 minutes of news and push Leno to 10:30? How many people watch the second half of an hour-long 10 o’clock news unless they are into Sports? (I assume O’Brien will start nationally at 11:30/10:30 Central.)
How retarded…the 10 or 11 news is the cash cow for all these stations looks like they are looking for an excuse to bulk up local ads and revenue in the expense of viewers…Conan wasn’t on til like 2:30am for the first 5 years here in detroit so the affiliate could make a few pennies airing jerry springer in syndication…cause they get all the ad revenue as opposed to sharing with the network…
I don’t dislike Jay, but he’s being an a** & unfair to Conan O’ Brien. I hope he fails–I didn’t say that, Mr. Limbaugh said it!
It boggles my mind that people watch Leno, which is some of the most vapid entertainment on television (Ellen holds top prize). I live in the Boston area, good for you, Boston!
This is ridiculous – WHDH brass thinks we’d rather watch 90 minutes of news instead of Jay Leno? That’s so stupid. The news is on at 10:00 on a sister station. I think this station chief is greatly overconfident in the beauty of Francis Rivera and Kim Kazhei attracting viewers – they are cougars, but I’ll be watching another channel at 10:00.
I’m sure the people in Boston don’t want to watch that much local news, but I like that someone is pointing out how ridiculous it is to have yet another late night talk show when there is already 3. I wish NBC would stop being lazy and find some good writers. I like Jay, but I sincerly hope the 10 PM talk show fails.
I’m from Boston and pretty proud of the fact that WHDH said no. Leno is not only not funny, but he’s screwing Conan over big time. See the exit, Jay? Use it.
What a brilliant move–a Boston Tea Party of Sorts for viewers sick of waiting until 11 pm (in the East) to get to watch news on a network affiliate. Good for NBC-Boston! If the Fox Boston affiliate Fox-25 already wins that time slot some night in news over all three networks’ 10 pm programming on some nights, clearly there IS a news need and market in an earlier time slot. And Jay Leno’s 10 pm slated-show is clearly trying to cover a programming catastrophe–an inability to actually create shows the public wants at 10 pm. “Dump the idiotic put-Jay-Leno on in primetime plan now” the voices begin ringing out in Boston. And hopefully this too will spread, creating an anti-Leno in primetime revolution that makes NBC try to create good shows again or risk losing an hour of programming to news!