Low Expectations All Around for Leno

Are we supposed to feel sorry for Jay Leno? On the eve of his 10 p.m. talk show's debut on NBC, everyone keeps undermining the guy, lowering expectations for the size of his potential audience and the program's worth in the eyes of advertisers.

Today, the Wall Street Journal's Sam Schechner and Suzanne Vranica report that advertisers are paying between $55,000 and $75,000 for 30-second spots during Leno's new show, or "about half what they'd spend per commercial in new episodes of dramas on competing networks." As a point of comparison, the Journal reports that ads running during Law & Order: SVU at the same time last year pulled in $137,000 for 30-seconds.

Earlier this week, Time's James Poniewozik wrote in a cover story about Leno, "NBC has set the bar low enough for a sleeping man to clear. If Leno can just get the ratings he did in late night, some 5 million viewers (paltry by 10 p.m. standards), his show will be more profitable than what it replaced in that time slot, reps say."

And what about the content of the new show? Well, expectations are low for that too.

According to a report from inside a test-taping of the show posted on TVmuchies.com, it's not looking good. (This comes via Nikki Finke's Deadline.com.) Here's what their undercover reporters had to say: "Jay is at the helm of this show, but we get the feeling he has little autonomy on his own show. With his own prime-time program, we thought we’d get to see more of Jay as himself. Unfortunately, looks like he’ll continue to be a big ladle serving us more imitation-comedy gruel."

Hey, it worked for Leno at 11:35 p.m. all these years. Maybe the show will be just fine.