What Live Entertainment Organizations Can Learn from the Leno Disaster

Jay Leno is moving back to late night, and that’s been the big news this week in TV land.

He spent years, of course, as the host of the Tonight Show before moving to prime time at 10 o’clock five days a week starting back in fall.

That’s a big move, giving one guy 25% of your networks prime time air, so why do it?  NBC reportedly did it because it would be inexpensive to produce Leno’s show, especially if they stretched it out to five nights a week.

Cheapskates.

Here they have one of the largest media platforms in the world, and they’re worried about making programming on the cheap.  They expected to make less money from the show, but proportionally not lose as much revenue as they saved by not producing traditional prime time content.

If someone were deliberately setting out to sabotage the network without making it look too obvious, this would be a brilliant plan.  Do less, earn less, and be less relevant.  A few (and I mean a few) more pennies on the bottom line don’t solve the problem of making NBC relevant to viewers again.

So what does this have to do with you?

First, it’s the opposite of producing an expensive show and then “needing” to overcharge for it.  This is an example of creating a deliberately weak, cheap show and then assuming you can charge a decent (though perhaps reduced) price for it.  They’re two sides of the same coin, both of which pretty much ignore the audience.   It turns out the audience wants interesting, fresh shows, and that requires some savvy and some risk-taking, not waving a white flag.

Second, it’s the opposite of a healthy patron philosophy.  You should see your patrons as people who are interested and engaged in what you do, and if possible, you should be finding ways to give them more and get more back in return, either financially or with support or loyalty.  NBC decided it would give its viewers less and ask for less in return.  That’s wrong.  It’s got to be more for more.  Organizations not able or even trying to do that are in decline.

Third, by wiping out a big chunk of its prime time lineup, NBC was setting itself up to reduce its ability to produce original content permanently.  Imagine your left arm was broken, and instead of rehabilitating it to health, you stuck a mechanical rod on your left shoulder to help you move that arm.   After a while, that left arm will be permanently feeble.  A few weeks ago, I wrote about how many live organizations have been getting the advice that the key to success in tough times is simply to produce less content. Sure, produce less lousy, unimpactful content, but don’t produce less content if it’s something taking your organization in the right direction.  Produce more of that and get better and better at it, because that is the asset that ultimately will make you successful.

So by all means, learn a lesson from NBC that’s free to you, but will ultimately be extremely expensive to them.  HBO spends a lot of money developing its programming.  It ain’t cheap to make The Wire, True Blood or the Sopranos, but I bet you can guess which of the two networks is doing better.

UPDATE:  Jerry Seinfeld (among others) thinks NBC should be applauded for experimenting, but I think that’s just Jerry being nice.  This is an experiment like it was an “experiment” when North Korea started encouraging its people to eat 2 meals a day instead of 3.