NBC Boston Swallows Jay Leno's 10 p.m. Show
On second thought, WHDH decided it might not go out of business if it airs Jay Leno's show at 10 pm, so the station reversed a short-lived effort to reject Leno's whatever-the-hell-it's-going-to-be at 10 p.m.
Translation: NBC scared the crap out of the independently-owned station by threatening to yank its network affiliation, and probably by explaining the likely fate of unaffiliated channels in the age of Hulu and Netflix and podcasting and iTunes.
Then Leno probably played the good cop with a friendly, awkward phone call to the owner, who told Broadcasting & Cable,
Jay is from Andover where I went to school. I enjoy his humor. We hope the new show is a big success.
Translation: We'll revisit this issue after the ratings implode, like we predicted. But here's to hoping against hope.
The same owner said previously the show would be "very adverse to our finances." So if Leno fails he could ruin this station, and humiliate his NBC bosses (especially Ben Silverman) to boot. No pressure, Jay!
