TV news, web sites, and blogs have been buzzing all week with the news that NBC is moving Jay Leno's program out of prime time to 11:30 PM, cutting it to a half hour, and placing The Tonight Show at midnight. Conan O' Brien's statement has been all over the internet, so there's no need to quote the entire thing here. This situation provides such a "teachable moment" that I am compelled to point out some sides of the issue that I haven't seen discussed in detail.
1. It's impossible to predict audience tastes five years in the future: NBC made the decision to re-sign Conan and promise him The Tonight Show in 2009 to solve a problem they had in 2004. They assumed that five more years of building an audience would allow Conan to slip easily behind the Tonight Show desk at a time when Jay Leno's audience would be leaving the show. It probably appeared logical at the time -- it was just wrong. Leno was still popular, and NBC, which had very few other hit shows, found themselves scrambling for ideas to keep Leno and honor their commitment to Conan. Had NBC remembered that it's impossible to predict audience tastes five years in the future, they might have left themselves more options.
Therefore, when you're creating your own program ideas, don't spend any time worrying about making them "commercial." No one knows for sure if an idea will become popular until they make it available to the public. The best thing you can in developing your idea is keep it as close to the core of what excited you about it as possible. A good television programmer will respond to your passion.
I'll point out more lessons we can learn from this in upcoming blogs.
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