1. Move Jay from five nights a week to one
Jay Leno is not my favorite comedian, but middle class America seems to love him because he is decidedly a-political and very topical. Although, if middle class America does love him, they are certainly not watching him. He is averaging ratings akin to cable shows like "Sons of Anarchy" and as a result of his low audience the local news, Conan, and Jimmy Fallon are getting the short end of the stick. NBC seems adament about keeping Jay because advertisers will pay big bucks time slots during his show and his show is less expensive to make.
So to solve this little quandry, I propose we borrow something from our friends over in England (and it wouldn't be the first time *coughoughTHEOFFICEcoughcough*). Across the pond they have a little variety/talk show called "Friday Night with Jonathan Ross" which is about an hour and features the host and his quirky band and they interview very big name celebrities. Apparently it is a very big deal to be booked on this show.
So, NBC, why not do the same? You could easily make a "Friday Night with Jay Leno" or even (because no one watches TV on Fridays) a "Thursday Night with Jay Leno." His show on Thursday would be a nice capstone to the promising comedy night on Thursdays and he would certainly book the biggest names and have all the time and energy to make his show actually decent and not so painful to watch.
Less Leno would prove to be a stronger lead in for local network news, which then leads me nicely into my next topic.
Conan O'Brien is now the man in charge of Late Night and right now he seems to be a little bit behind in the ratings race (although props to you, Conan, for not cheating on your wife and having affairs at work). Conan is used to being the underdog and finding his nitch, he did just that with 'Late Night', but now we're in a position that instead of playing the waiting game, we take a lot of those celebrities that would have been on Jay Leno, but now aren't because he's only on one night a week, and give them to Conan. Also, throw a few more talented writers his way (after you give some to SNL, which is also pretty painful to watch).
3. Hire Joss Whedon
Since his show 'Dollhouse' has now been cancelled, there is a perfect opportunity to court the man who co-created 'Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog' and 'Buffy' and give him some creative power to make a nice one hour show that would fit in perfectly to one of the newly-vacated 10 o'clock slots. Joss has a knack for creating shows that have a hard core fan following, which is what NBC needs right now, but terribly lacks. They have no real shows that are creating hardcore fan bases (see Fox's 'Glee' and ABC's 'Lost').
4. The Sitcom is not dead yet (so stop treating it like it is)
Though is may be trendy for the multi-camera, documentary style, comedies right now ('Modern Family', 'The Office'), America's Most Watched Network, CBS, is proving otherwise. It's Monday night line-up of 'How I Met Your Mother' 'Two and A Half Men' and 'The Big Bang Theory' are shows that either critics think are funny, or get a lot of viewers, or both. So here's my advice to NBC: scour the drolls of turned down sitcoms, find something that makes you and all your cousins laugh, re-work it tell its network perfect and then pitch it to your heart's content.
One reason why people think the sitcom is dead is because there are no longer any new ideas. The same ones are just being rehashed over and over. So, we look to classic sitcoms to find something that we can laugh at. Classic shows like 'Three's Company' and 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show' (and hell, even 'All in the Family' or 'I Love Lucy') center around a situation that is relatively progressive (co-ed living, women in the workplace, biggotry, bi-racial marriages), so now it's time to find things that people are relatively uncomfortable with and make it almost farsicle. I'm positive they have plenty of topics to chose from (religion and homophobia come to mind).
5. Give the people some weird shit on TV
It seems to me that if you are looking at the ratings of TV's long running shows, they are all dramas that deal with the law, criminals, the military, or hospitals. This makes it easy for a desperate network like NBC to cave into, but I would advise they stay away from those and instead really get to the heart of why people like these shows: they feature a lot of weird shit.
Truth be told, the only reason 'Grey's Anatomy' was so appealing in it's first two (and best) seasons was because there were lots of medical story lines that were just plain weird. This formula is probably why 'House' works the way it does too. So NBC, once again, scour the earth for the shows that deal with a lot of weird shit because, hey, that's what America likes to see.
Just whatever you do, NBC, don't put a show about vampires on TV. Please. I beg you.
