Leno in Daily Prime Time is Revolutionary Move

Jay Leno's move to prime time, with a five-evening a week 10pm show on NBC, is the most significant development in network television programming in decades. Far more significant than just a new series, a daily interview show in prime time on a network is revolutionary, a shake-up of the very programming logic of television, that we haven't seen in decades.

NBC's 1am "Tomorrow" with Tom Snyder in 1970s and ABC's "Nightline" with Ted Koppel in the 1980s are the most recent examples that come to mind. Those two shows changed the nature of late-night programming by putting on news, and paved the way for all-news cable. But late-night draws fewer viewers than prime time.

Leno's new show will compete with cable news - a rerun of Keith Olbermann's Countdown on MSNBC, but the first runs Anderson Cooper's "360" on CNN, and Greta Van Susteren on Fox. Indeed, I think Leno's new show can be considered as much a migration of cable to network as late night network to prime time. The success of NBC's Saturday Night Live forays into prime time is a recent precursor of this move.

There's also no doubt that the politics-comedy-interview mix is in the air. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have been soaring for years.

Network television, in general, has not. It has been losing viewers. Will Leno at 10pm staunch the tide?

It will be fun to see.

Tom Snyder: Progenitor of Cable and YouTube

A note to mark the passing of Tom Snyder into the realm of the ultimate rerun. He died on July 29, at age 71.

Synder was of course best known for his work on NBC's Tomorrow show, from 1973-1982. Synder was brilliantly spoofed by Dan Akroyd on Saturday Night Live, did lots of work on radio, and even showed for a while on local TV news here in New York.

He was easy to laugh at, but, in his own way, was probably more important than Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley, and any of those classic network news guys. This was because Snyder showed, on The Tomorrow Show, that there was a powerful appetite for new news and cutting edge interviews in the middle of the night - or after Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show.

If that sounds familiar, or commonplace now, that's because you see it every night on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC - not to mention ABC's Nightline. All of that and more are the progeny of what Tom Snyder brought into being.

Indeed, by stretching the notion of the possible in television news and interviews, Synder not only set up our world for cable, but for YouTube, Obama Girl videos and all that makes our current news world so vibrant.

God speed, Tom. My wife and I saw you on the first Tomorrow show in 1973, and we'll all be poorer for your leaving.