A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

LEADING IN RATINGS WITH MY CHIN: I want to make what I'm sure will be an unpopular argument around here, and one I'm not sure will actually be proven true. Indeed, I seriously hope it will be proven untrue--that theory is this--"Jay Leno at 10 PM will be a huge success for NBC." My arguments:

• For as much as the Reporters Who Write About Television and the "cultural elites" hate him, the general public lurves Leno. He's been creaming Letterman for years--drawing 5.7 million viewers a night. Admittedly, that's not high by network primetime standards--though it's on par with what The Unusuals has done for ABC on Wednesdays at 10, and what Southland did for NBC Thursdays at 10 after its solid premiere numbers. If his viewership is steady, he's a winner.
• Leno doesn't have any competition in the slot. Not only is there no variety show competition in the slot, there's no comedy there. Looking at the fall schedule, 10 PM is pretty heavy on the downer shows--Castle and The Mentalist are both cop shows with comic elements, and Eastwick looks like it's going to have some comic elements, but for people looking to laugh, Leno is the only real option.
  
• Leno is "safe." There are clearly a lot of viewers of Dancing With The Stars that have decided that they don't like Castle, and I don't see Jerry Bruckheimer procedural The Forgotten appealing to that audience either. Leno's an appealing option to that group, which I'm guessing will skew older.
• The economic argument. Even with Leno's outrageous salary, an hour of his show will be at least half the cost of an hour drama, especially one with a big starry cast (like Parenthood) or one that requires a lot of location shooting and stunt work (Heroes, Trauma). NBC may come out ahead even with lower ratings.
  
• Leno is DVR-proof. It loses any timeliness or interest after it's aired. It's immediate--no one is going to be TiVoing his show to watch over the weekend.
• Given how horrific NBC at 10 has been this season, with the exception of Law & Order: Extra Tasty Crispy, there's nowhere to go but up.
• It's better than the alternative--having Leno take big bucks and potentially destroy Tonight, one of the most lucrative shows on television, by going on against it. There's an opportunity cost here that has to be netted out.
  

I want to emphasize that I don't WANT this to happen--nor am I sure that this actually will happen, but I think it's possible we could see in the fall not the epic Fail that many are expecting, but a win for NBC.