Jay Leno’s move to primetime

Will Leno's new NBC show be good for the network—and Conan O'Brien?

Moving Jay Leno to a nightly primetime show is a “major roll of the dice” for NBC, said David Hinckley in the New York Daily News. It does keep Leno—who is otherwise expected to leave the network when Conan O’Brien takes over the Tonight Show in 2009—“in the NBC house and, equally important, out of anyone else's house.” But there’s no telling if viewers want to see him at 10 p.m., when they’re used to watching shows about “doctors and cops.”

Don’t worry, said Patt Morrison in the Los Angeles Times, there will be an audience for Leno. “Baby boomers are toddling off into elder-hood,” so soon “the nation will be lining up for the seniors' Early Bird Dinner Special at 4 p.m., and then coming home to fall asleep right after the Leno monologue.”

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