No Joke: Jay Leno Took Pay Cut of 50%

[h=1]No Joke: Leno Took Pay Cut of 50%[/h]http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443589304577635841079042920.html[h=3]By CHRISTOPHER S. STEWART[/h]Late-night talk show host Jay Leno took a 50% pay cut as part of NBC's budget-chopping effort last month at "The Tonight Show," the network said, detailing the scope of the changes for the first time as well as the reasoning behind them.
The outsized pay cut, which took Mr. Leno's salary down to around $15 million, helped NBC slash the show's $100 million annual budget by about 20%, the network said. At the same time, Mr. Leno, the leading late night host, extended his contract for another two years to May 2014.
Associated Press Jay Leno, shown last year, extended his contract for another two years to May 2014.



The mid-August cutbacks were widely covered in the media but without precise details from the network. At the time, most news reports said that Mr. Leno took a significant pay cut. NBC also clarified the number of layoffs, which it put at 20, among them writers and producers, reducing the show's staff to about 200.
NBC is a unit of Comcast CMCSA -0.43% Corp's NBCUniversal.
The network's entertainment chief, Robert Greenblatt, on Thursday night confirmed previous reports that the cuts were aimed at reversing tens of millions of dollars in budget increases implemented when Mr. Leno's show was moved to prime-time briefly in 2009. NBC shifted the show back to 11.35 p.m. when the move failed to attract more viewers—yet the larger budget remained.
"All we did was bring it back down to pre-prime-time levels," Mr. Greenblatt said in an interview from his Los Angeles office.
He acknowledged, however, that "Tonight" is "not the cash cow it was in the Johnny Carson days," although he said it was still profitable.
Late-night broadcasts have taken a hit over the years as audiences scatter to the Web and cable-TV shows such as "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" on Viacom Inc.'s VIAB +1.14% Comedy Central. While "Tonight" remains the king of the late talk hours, its average total audience between last September and early August shrank 5% from the year before, according to Nielsen data provided by NBC. Most other late-night shows have seen similar declines.
Advertising, too, has dropped. "Tonight's" ad revenue fell to $159 million last year from $255 million in 2007, according to Kantar Media, while "Late Show With David Letterman," on CBS Corp.'s CBS +0.44% network, slumped to $155 million from $205 million over the same period.
Among the exceptions to the ratings trend has been Jimmy Kimmel's midnight show on ABC. The budget reductions at Tonight came just days before the Walt Disney DIS -0.25% Co.-owned network announced it was moving Mr. Kimmel to 11.35 p.m. to go head to head with Mr. Leno and CBS's David Letterman.
At the time, there was speculation that NBC would move Jimmy Fallon, a younger comic who has a show at 12.35 a.m. to replace Mr. Leno, to combat ABC's move, an idea undermined by Mr. Leno's contract extension. Mr. Greenblatt said that he is "unfazed by Kimmel," though he may "siphon off some young hipsters from Letterman."
Since his arrival to NBC in early 2011, Mr. Greenblatt has been trying to lift the network's sagging prime-time ratings, while reducing the hundreds of millions of dollars it loses every year.
"Everything is less profitable these days, including the prime-time schedule," said Mr. Greenblatt.
Mr. Greenblatt said he noticed the bulge in "Tonight's" budget last spring, after he had finished introducing his first full season of prime-time programming. "I went to his [Leno's] office and we sat down and I said, 'We have to be smart about how we do this show. We are in a difficult place at the network'…He understood."
Mr. Greenblatt said that the budget reboot won't change the quality of the late-night production.
Mr. Leno agreed. "We are just going to work harder and more efficiently," the host said in an email. "Our job is to be sure that none of this shows up on screen."
Meanwhile, Mr. Greenblatt hasn't spoken to the 62-year-old host about ending his 20-year-reign at "Tonight." "That's a conversation we'll have as we look down the road," he said.
When?
Mr. Greenblatt didn't know for certain, but said "I'm sure there will be a day when these guys—Letterman and Leno—wake up and say, 'It's time for us to exit gracefully.'"
Until that happens, Mr. Leno is taking one day at a time. "Our biggest challenge is the change in viewing habits," he said. "We fight daily the DVR and online viewing, but we show up to work 5 days a week to make the show as topical, newsworthy, relatable and funny as possible."
Write to Christopher S. Stewart at christopher.stewart@wsj.com

 

What an asshole.

 

Fuck Beth

 

Jay Lenoberg

 

How will he get by?

 

Good guy Jay takes a pay cut to help save the jobs of his staffers, while Howard hordes marbles and makes sure his staff doesn't even have dental coverage.

 

He didn't have a choice, it's that piece of shit company Comcast's fault.

Plus what they did was give him his old salary before he went to prime time with that failure. Plus NBC had to pay that Conan something like $45 million which is just a loss.


Howard took a pay cut too, but no one in show biz is interested enough to report on it. And Howard will spin it and say he makes the same because he works less.

 

they don't have dental?

 

I think JD had to pay out of pocket awhile back for some dental work.

 

Is Stuttering John still employed by them?

 

I like the last line. He works 5 days a week.

 

Howard won't like this.
He won't like this one bit.

 

Well this actually humanizes Jay a bit for me, and underscores what a shithead Howard is. He wouldn't even consider taking a pay cut to help out his staff, let alone 50%. Howard feels generous when he pays for a Christmas party. Asshole.

 

No, I remember both JD and Richard forgoing needed dental procedures because their insurance doesn't cover it.

Also JD, the backbone of the show, get mugged riding the subway ridingt to and from his apartmentlocated in a slum on coney island where he is neighbors with jeff the vomit guy

 

Premium unleaded only allowed every other fill-up!

 

jay already demonstrated during the pre-tonightshow show/conan debacle that he'll bend over and take it in the ass from NBC at any time, as deep and hard as they want.

 

But Howard swore on his life that Jay was only taking an extremely small pay cut to make himself look better.

 

Plus the secret santa so he didn't have to buy everyone gifts and his frequent mentions of allegedly being a good tipper to show how generous he is to the minions. I think Howard was forced to take a pretty big annual pay cut when he signed his second Sirius deal, but he would never give marbles back like Jay for the benefit of others.

 

"The fact of the matter is Robin, Jay took a 50% pay cut. Good. Fuck Jay Leno! He was making too much money anyway. The ratings probably suck so bad that NBC didnt want to put as much money into the show. Jay is a horrible human being."

Robin: "I was just about to say that!"

 

They're on the Sirius insurance plan. So they have dental/medical, but it's really minimal.