Friday, March 22, 2013

Weasels of the Week: NBC executives & Rush Limbaugh

"Those who fail to remember history are doomed to repeat it."----George Santayana.

You would think that the suits at NBC would have studied that time honored line by now, because, well, in the words of Ronald Reagan, there they go again.

Word has gotten out that in order to lure back the 18-34 demographic that advertisers want more than any other age group, NBC wants to supplant Jay Leno as host of The Tonight Show again, this time replacing him with current Late Night host and College of St. Rose graduate Jimmy Fallon (ex-Saturday Night Live). To say that Fallon has risen up the network's ladder would be an understatement. Fallon is also one of the three primary pitchmen for Capital One Bank, along with Jerry Stiller and Alec Baldwin. The one advantage that Fallon has on Leno, demos aside, is that he can also sing, as he's demonstrated on Late Night & Saturday Night Live. That would be a throwback to the days of Mike Douglas & Merv Griffin, the latter of whom did both daytime & nighttime talkers.

What brought this on? ABC moved Jimmy Kimmel Live up to 11:35 (ET) a few months back, and that drew the college crowd away from Leno & David Letterman. CBS is not yet making any noise about bumping Letterman, if only because he has his own fan base with the 18-34 set. For NBC it's a dilemma similar to their morning issues, as Today has fallen behind Good Morning America, and long time anchor Matt Lauer is being blamed for some of the problems there. That's another issue for another time.

The bottom line is that NBC needs to think this through. Leno's not getting any younger, and he is nowhere near the level of charisma that the late Johnny Carson, his predecessor, had. NBC tried once before to appease Leno with a weeknight primetime show, and that bombed worse than their much-hyped winter drama, Do No Harm, which came and went in 2 weeks. The best move they can make---and the right one, which they should've made before---would be to give Leno a series of primetime specials, a la Bob Hope in the 60's & 70's, and see how that works.

And, then, there is Rush Limbaugh, putting his foot in his mouth again.

In today's New York Daily News, Limbaugh was raked over the coals for likewise ripping Beyonce's new CD, completely misinterpreting one of her songs as something it wasn't. All that did was expose Limbaugh again as being clueless about current pop music and culture, and as one critic surmised, it's possible Limbaugh didn't even listen to the CD at all.

Limbaugh stopped being relevant a long time ago, and every time he makes the news now, much like 700 Club founding father Pat Robertson, he comes across as being out of touch, and yet unwilling to step down and let someone else move into his chair. His feeling, methinks, is that as long as he's got something to talk about, he'll stay on the air. Fair enough, but he is quickly becoming a national joke, if not also a disgrace. For that, Limbaugh not only gets the Weasel ears again (2nd time), along with the NBC idiots, but also a Dunce Cap for being so quick to make a pointless misjudgment. Come to think of it, we'll send a box of Dunce Caps to NBC, too, just for fun.

2 comments:

magicdog said...

The NBC suits apparently have short memories, as they begged Leno to come back to the show when Conan O'Brien was failing as host. Leno even took a paycut to save jobs on his show when the budget got trimmed. People never seem to talk about that.

I do think however this is planned. How could Leno so blatently insult VERY powerful people and NOT get yanked off air? This is to drum up publicity for Leno's retirement and push Fallon in. The best thing about this stunt is that Leno hasn't been this funny in ages! Too bad political correctness prevents the best jokes from being spun.

As for Limbaugh, I heard the broadcast and I don't understand what the fuss is. He was quoting an article written in a British paper by an unhappy fan/feminist. He didn't come up with those remarks, the reporter did. As usual, it's all about killing the messenger.

This isn't the first time Beyonce got zapped anyway. IIRC she's been insulted by no less than Terry Maginnis on Batman Beyond during a Static Shock crossover. When they first meet, Terry asks Virgil who he is and Vigil responds flippantly, "Beyonce". Terry took him at his word, showing that Beyonce's fame didn't last all that long - at least in that future!

IMO, Beyonce's not all that anyway, at least not to me.

hobbyfan said...

Beyonce's ok, but that's about it. As for Rush Limbo-rock, it figures that in order to paint a bad picture of him, the media ignored the actual source material. No shock there, as Rush became irrelevant a while ago.

The articles on Leno-Fallon referenced the whole Leno-Conan imbroglio of 2009-10, but the suits are just afraid that Jay's not about to retire when they want him to.