It’s nice when our Media Gods prove they are human.
Oh, I’m not talking about the day Martha Stewart went to jail. Or Jim Cramer showing humility on The Daily Show. Or Lindsay Lohan making a court appearance. Those guys are Celebrity Gods. I’m talking Media Gods here — the unseen corporate management types who make random decisions without thinking through the consequences. Because they can.
WHDH Station Owner Ed Ansin did the Nancy Reagan thing a few weeks ago when he Just Said No to Leno. Losing the #7 DMA at 10p is hardly the NBC’s recipe for ratings’ success. Not to mention that it threatens the affiliate-network relationship, creates a precedent for other stations to jump ship and raises the question of why GE employs all of those expensive lawyers.
Not to worry. Apparently the lawyers did their job.
After being contacted by NBC, it came to Ansin’s attention that Jay Leno is from the Boston area. “Upon further consideration, we have decided to telecast Jay Leno at 10:00 p.m. starting in September. Jay is from Andover where I went to school.”
Whew. That’s a relief! I thought there was some kind of contract thingee at stake here.
So, the next time a school child asks why it’s important to learn geography, tell them without the knowledge that Jay Leno is from Andover, Bostonians would have to suffer through another hour of local news at 10p every weeknight.
The LA Times notes that Ansin and NBC have a history. NBC yanked their affiliate from an Ansin owned station in Miami 22 years ago.
On April 2, Ansin said “We don’t think the Leno show is going to be effective in prime time. It will be detrimental to our 11 o’clock. It will be very adverse to our finances.” If Ansin only knew Jay was from Andover! Maybe the discovery of Leno’s origins help qualify the new 10p show as local content?
Like, I said, Media Gods are funny. Now, if they only had a sense of humor…