On Fri, Sep 7, 2012 at 5:05 PM, Tom Wolper <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 7, 2012 at 4:23 PM, PGage <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > I think the WSJ has buried the lead here, which is that Leno extended > for 2 > > years (maybe we already knew that and I repressed it). So now the > > conversation may have not only been "Jay, take a pay cut or we will fire > > even more of your staff", but also, "take a pay cut or we will fire even > > more of your staff and being in Fallon when your contract expires". > > I think it's sharper than that. I think NBC told Jay he takes a pay > cut or there is no extension. Jay took the pay cut and told the public > he did it to save more staff jobs. Indirectly he did, since no > extension means everybody goes home. > This is what I was trying to say in my paragraph above yours (I see I wrote "being" instead of "bring", but my point was to suggest that NBC made the contract extension for Leno contingent on him taking the pay cut now). It would be interesting to know if Leno would have taken any paycut at all if NBC had basically signaled that no matter what he did they were going to bring in the cheaper Fallon when his contract expired. > For the rest of your post, all I can say is I don't trust Hollywood > accounting and I look at all the numbers reported in the media as > suspect. As a megacorporation Comcast (and GE before them) can shift > revenues and costs among departments to the point where they can do a > press release showing that a show that makes a huge profit loses money > for the company and vice versa. > Perhaps - though this kind of creative accounting seems more common in the film industry than television. I may be missing sources of revenue or expense, but all I did in my calculations was multiple Tonight Show's weekly budget (after the cuts, as reported in several outlets recently) by the number of weeks I guestimated it was in production each year, and then subtracted that from the reported annual ad revenue generated by the Tonight Show, which was from a reputable source and I think pretty reliable. I would be very surprised if the new Comcast overloards would have approved a two year extension for Leno if he was actually loosing them money. I think it is likely that Leno and Dave and the others (not sure about Conan and Handler) are generating net profit for their employers, but not as much as they used to, and the amount has been going down each year over the last 5 years or so. -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
