T.L. Hughes 752 Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 ABC announced today (August 21) that Nightline will trade timeslots with Jimmy Kimmel Live! starting in January 2013. Nightline will be bumped from the 11:35 p.m. slot it has held since its March 1980 debut (or November 1979, if you factor its beginnings as a program used to provide nightly updates on the Iran hostage crisis). Here's the story from The New York Times: With Jimmy Kimmel moving to 11:35 p.m. in January, the famed ABC News program “Nightline” will be moving back a full hour to 12:35 a.m. It is a deeply disappointing outcome for many at the news division, which had fought hard to keep the pre-midnight time slot. On Tuesday afternoon, the news division president Ben Sherwood did not sugarcoat the change in a memo to colleagues. But he said that come Jan. 8, when the new times take effect: “I’m confident that our loyal viewers will stay with ‘Nightline,’ and its immensely talented anchors, correspondents and staff will enjoy many successes for years to come.” Mr. Sherwood did take note, however, that the “Nightline” staff would be responsible for a new hour in prime time on Fridays, starting in March. His memo is reprinted below. The Memo I’m writing to let you know about changes the network is making in late night and prime time. ABC believes it has a stronger growth opportunity in late night if “Jimmy Kimmel Live” precedes “Nightline,” so starting Jan. 8, “Nightline” and “Jimmy Kimmel Live” will switch time periods. “Nightline” is moving to 12:35 a.m. ET, and JKL will take over at 11:35 p.m. In this new arrangement “Nightline” will expand in length to fill the half hour, and, significantly, the “Nightline” team will also produce an additional hour every week in prime time on Friday nights at 9:00 p.m. beginning March 1st. With its success and growth, “What Would You Do?” will also find a new home on the schedule. As you all know, growth is a primary objective of ABC and our news division. In the last year the network has supported our important growth initiatives through the Yahoo! digital deal and our innovative joint venture with Univision and has helped us achieve the resurgence we’re enjoying at Good Morning America. And the network remains fully supportive of our strategy to win the present and future of news and information. I know you’ll have many questions, and we’ll answer them in smaller groups starting today. For now, it’s important to note that “Nightline” has proven its ability to grow over three decades on the air with the show currently enjoying some of its highest ratings and best editorial work ever. The “Nightline” team will now bring its excellent journalism to new time periods, and we especially welcome the chance to produce an hour every Friday in prime time, where new audiences will be introduced to the program’s signature storytelling, interviewing and investigations. These changes take effect 20 weeks from now, and until then, “Nightline” remains in its existing time slot with a lot of important work to do, including covering two conventions, four debates and a presidential election. Our viewers are counting on us to deliver the exceptional journalism that has always defined “Nightline”. Next year, when these changes are carried out, I’m confident that our loyal viewers will stay with “Nightline,” and its immensely talented anchors, correspondents and staff will enjoy many successes for years to come. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MidwestTV 1173 Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 Do they honestly think that JKL will be able to compete with The Tonight Show and Late Show? I mean, hell, when I think late night comedy television with hosts, I do NOT think of ABC at all! Are his ratings increasing or what? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WXmanTim 88 Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 I imagine it has everything to do with the demo ratings. JKL brings a younger, more advertiser-desirable audience than Nightline could ever hope to. Ratings may or may not be significantly higher, but they can get more money for JKL's eyeballs than for Nightline's. Plus any growth will be in that demo, versus the older-skewing demos of Nightline, Leno & Letterman. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jess 1110 Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 I can see the reasons behind the move. Kimmel has started to gain some traction and his stock is rising within the network. His ratings have been increasing, his critical awareness has been growing, and he's getting some pretty nice hosting gigs. Plus, advertisers are probably more interested in Kimmel's younger demos than the older demos for Nightline, so they stand to come out better financially. Plus, remember that in a lot of markets he'll have the strongest news lead-in. Is it risky? Hell yes - not only is he facing two entrenched shows, Colbert, and the second half of Conan, he's also up against Adult Swim, which is a ratings monster in the demo. But ABC clearly thinks they have something (I kind of agree), the Other Two are experiencing declines and skewing old, so it makes sense to give him 11:35 and see what happens. It makes sense, and I have a feeling the ratings might be a bit surprising to everyone who thinks he's an also-ran. But even though it makes sense, it still sucks. Nightline wasn't what it used to be under Koppel. I'm not a fan of the softer, multi-topic format and the more over the top approach. But it caught on, it got ratings, and proved that late night news had value. Now that it's going to the Fallon zone, I fear its days might be numbered, especially if Kimmel catches on and ABC decides they want a "compatible" show afterwards. I just think back to Koppel's closing thought, which is the best, most dignified signoff by a news anchor, ever. I can't find a video (I might have to supply one), but it's replayed over and over in my head, especially this last part. You’ve always been very nice to me, so give this new Nightline anchor team a fair break. If you don’t, I promise you the network will just put another comedy show in this time slot. Then you’ll be sorry. Well, we did, and the network still put a comedy show in this timeslot. So I guess we're gonna be sorry anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mrtraveler01 737 Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 Wasn't Nightline getting higher raitings than Leno and Letterman for a while? What happened? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark 55 Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 I don't expect this will be a success at first, but I can see what they mean about the growth potential of Kimmel. As a younger viewer, I'll take Kimmel or Conan over Leno or Letterman any day. Leno and Letterman won't be around forever and if ABC is ever going to be a player in late night comedy, they need to establish someone in that timeslot sooner rather than later. I'm just glad Nightline is sticking around in some form. And the new timeslot isn't so bad as other networks have had success at 12:30. I may actually end up watching Nightline more often now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T.L. Hughes 752 Posted August 21, 2012 Author Share Posted August 21, 2012 The funny thing is that it seems to me like ABC is doing Kimmel and Nightline something similar to what NBC tried to do two years ago with The Jay Leno Show and The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien (something that Jimmy himself lambasted Leno for in a "10@10" segment on The Jay Leno Show and even led to Kimmel parodying Leno on his own show). The only difference here is Nightline is getting an "incentive" by getting a primetime weekly version and the fact that both shows do well in the ratings. Don't get me wrong, I've got nothing against Jimmy Kimmel, I used to watch him almost regularly and I still like the "This Week in Unnecessary Censorship" segment to this day. But still, it's hard not to try and draw some comparisons between this and the Leno-Conan debacle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d247 43 Posted August 22, 2012 Share Posted August 22, 2012 It will be interesting to see how KTUL responds to this. They push Nightline and Kimmel back an hour to make room for a block of Two and a Half Men (10:35, which will soon be its only timeslot as its 6:30 spot is being taken over by the return of Wheel) and According to Jim (11:05), perhaps to compete with KOTV, who wedge Inside Edition between Letterman and Ferguson. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PTVNews 188 Posted August 22, 2012 Share Posted August 22, 2012 You guys are talking about ABC's motives but the impression I got from reading articles today was that this move was strongly pushed for by Jimmy Kimmel himself. In fact he was going to leave the network if they didn't promise him the 11:35 slot in his contract renewal. So ABC may have originally wanted to keep things the way they are but are making the best of the new circumstances. (not that they are bad circumstances. Though I agree about Nightline and it's longer term survival. Side note: What's interesting to me is how changes like this don't quite affect me like they used to since I started using a DVR a few years ago. Cause really, right now I record Nightline, The Tonight Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live, and Late Night and watch some shows the same night and others next day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MorningNews 1293 Posted August 22, 2012 Share Posted August 22, 2012 Nightline wasn't what it used to be with Koppel, however, I still enjoyed the program over the other 2 comedians. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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