Call it the start of the slow destruction of Nightline or the unwavering confidence the network has in Jimmy Kimmel. Either way, someone is getting bumped and someone is getting dumped. It's the high school prom all over again.
The New York Times reports that ABC is considering switching Jimmy Kimmel Live with Nightline's time slot sometime before or after Conan O'Brien makes his move from Late Night to The Tonight Show. That means Kimmel would no longer be messing with the natural order of late night television. He would be a direct competitor to Conan's new show when it hits the air later this year.
Of course, nothing is definite and no one except a few unnamed sources who claim to have "knowledge of meetings" are saying that the network is considering the change-up. No one is talking, which is ironic since all of this is over a lousy "talk" show.
Let's say for the sake of discussion that it's true. If the network does embrace Kimmel over Nightline, it will mark the beginning of the end for network television news as we know it. Nightline is a rare gem in this news-fatigued day and age where a simple broadcast consists of throwing as much news at you as possible until (a) you're too tired to process it all and pass out, or (b) you have processed it all, realized the doomsday scenarios the stories are setting up, and then pass out.
Kimmel deserves a chance to compete with the big boys, and if the network does decide to move him up the ranks, he should weather the storms just fine. But Kimmel's gain will become Nightline's pagan sacrifice. It will mark the beginning of the end for the fabled news program that has weathered a lot stronger storms than Kimmel will ever face. And who knows what repercussions it could cause through the television news community? Networks could replace their Sunday news roundtable shows with animated Sham-Wow! infomercials. The network would break into regularly scheduled programming to announce the "awesome primetime lineup." The evening news broadcasts would go dark and CBS might finally get the ratings they have been hoping for since Katie Couric joined their news division.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-29-2009 @ 11:12AM
JimB said...
Whoa whoa whoa. "It will mark the beginning of the end for the fabled news program that has weathered a lot stronger storms than Kimmel will ever face." Didn't the beginning of the end come several years ago when Ted Koppel left and they turned it from a thoughtful half hour dedicated to a single topic to yet one more magazine show that can't spend more than 8 minutes on a story? This "rare gem" faded a while ago.
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1-30-2009 @ 12:18PM
Vijay said...
@ JimB: It actually happened a year or two BEFORE that. If I recall correctly, Koppel tried to pursue the Plame leak, and was told by ABC to lay off. In 2004, he did read the names of US service people killed in Iraq, and ABC started to seriously threaten cancellation after some groups raised a stink.
Essentially, once news reporting was fully subservient to its profitability (which itself depends on a lack of political controversy), Nightline was doomed. Koppel's reputation alone made it hard to cancel the show.
1-29-2009 @ 11:32AM
Jeff N. said...
Kimmel is not even in HD. It won't be competition for Letterman & O'Brien till t does.
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1-29-2009 @ 11:54AM
davpel said...
Why JKL is not in HD is beyond me. At 11:30, Kimmel will flourish. JKL is consistently better than Conan and Leno, and better than Letterman and Ferguson on most nights. Now if ABC would let the show air live again . . . that would really set it apart from the rest.
1-29-2009 @ 1:02PM
Kyle said...
I've never understood why Kimmel isn't in HD. Ferguson isn't either. I would probably give him a chance if he was. Watching SD on an HDTV is hard to do but I do it for Kimmel because his monologue is the funniest on late night.
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1-29-2009 @ 4:32PM
stg said...
is that geri halliwell behind kimmel in the picture?
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1-30-2009 @ 12:36PM
Vijay said...
Also, I had a thought. If Kimmel is moved to the standard late-night slot, maybe ABC can be bold and change their entire approach to weeknights. They can save Nightline, and compete with Leno.
With Leno going to be daily 10-11, ABC can keep Nightline, expand it into a 10-11 show Monday, Tuesday, Thursday. That actually adds 22 minutes of new content to the week. They can keep the new Nightline format, but simultaneously allow for the greater depth that critics of the new format have been asking for.
20/20 can be scaled back to one hour on Friday, with the second hour moving to Wednesday. ABC can angle themselves as America's network news source at 10-11, while NBC is busy playing comedy.
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