Unless your spacecraft just landed last week, I’m guessing that you’re familiar by now with the new order of things over at NBC’s 10pm time slot.  In an attempt to focus solely on cost effectiveness, the network has tossed any attempt at real programming for the archaic comedy of one Jay Leno.  Not that NBC has had much to speak of in recent years in the entertainment department, but this clear and admitted tactic of filling prime time with cheap product, ratings be damned, spells out a dicey situation not just for televised entertainment but for this country as a whole.  To put it succinctly, Jay Leno is bad for America.

This is a purely suburban example I know, but seeing Jay Leno on week nights at 10pm (I haven’t actually watched his show and refuse to do so, the reason for which will become clear shortly) is sort of like when the once big fancy mall in your town starts sliding downhill and the Foot Lockers and Banana Republics are replaced by 99 cent stores and party supply warehouses.  Sure it’s still technically a mall, but only the dregs still go there.  The only reason it stays afloat is because the inventory was purchased at last weeks swap meet for a biscuit under thirty bucks.  NBC has become the once fancy mall that replaced its carpet with linoleum and sells its cheap plastic wares under blinding florescent lights.  Quality was sacrificed in the name of margin.  Jay Leno at 10pm is not entertainment, Jay Leno at 10pm is borrowed time waiting for a land developer to turn him into condos.  

Now, of course, this is just TV we’re talking about right?  It’s not that important in the vast scheme of things.  And besides, there’s plenty of good programming going on over at that cable TV complex.  The problem is that despite what we educated classes would like to believe, TV is important.  Not because it provides some landmark of cerebral evolution, but because it is entertainment, and what we are entertained by matters.  Think about it.  What is considered the greatest novel of the last 50 years?  Gravity’s Rainbow?  Beloved?  Catcher in the Rye? The Satanic Verses?  While it may be hard to pinpoint what could be the greatest novel, how much time have you spent discussing it.  How many of the novels that have made the short list have you read?  I’m a writer and I was a Lit major and I rarely discuss novels.  Now, how often have you said a phrase like “he’s a close talker,” or “king of the castle.”  For eight years the show Seinfeld added to the lexicon like no book ever could, and it was on NBC.  M.A.S.H. going off the air was a bigger national conversation than Reagan winning in 1984.  TV matters because entertainment matters.  Entertainment, especially one as easy to access as TV, is communal, because we all like to be entertained.  

If NBC sets a precedent for network TV that it no longer wants to entertain, it just wants to make a margin, then what will become of free to watch television?  Yes the entertainment industry is a business where money speaks, but for the last century it was a balance between making money and having the prestige of making the best content.  Look at the old studio system.  Jack Warner knew how to make a buck, but he also knew when to lose a buck if it meant showing up Louis B. Mayer.  Entertainment has worked on this delicate balance for a hundred years and now it’s coming unraveled.  The response of course is to just tune in to cable.  There are plenty of good shows on both the pay channels and basic cable.  Everything on the USA Network (ironically owned by NBC) lately is a home run.  But what about those that can’t afford cable.  For the economically depressed, what to do?

This is where Leno is bad for America.  Part of the biggest issue with socioeconomic division is the difficulty in bridging classes.  The poor can’t afford cable, and as free to watch network TV dissolves, the ability of the lower class to connect with the national conversation becomes more tenuous.  Essentially, low grade programming will cause intellectual atrophy among those who can’t afford quality entertainment.  Not that TV on any level is a bastion of intellectualism, but it is a common uniter. Professors and gardeners have their favorite shows, and often they are the same.  Again, a show like Seinfeld helps create a national consciousness by simply adding to the lexicon.  Throw away comments made in daily conversation often begin life on TV shows.  If two classes are watching two entirely different types of programming, then that means two entirely disconnected conversations.  Two conversations means two swaths of society that don’t understand each other, and that by any definition spells trouble.  Think things are bad now?  Just wait.  If the rest of the networks follow suit with bottom line programming, then the whole Dems v. Repubs divide is just the tip of the ice burg.

I’ll admit that I’ve never been a Jay Leno fan, but this newest turn has put me right off of him for good.  I’ve got nothing against the man, for all I know he is a great guy (who doesn’t seem to like his show either), but I think his show, and NBC’s cavalier disregard for accessible, well made entertainment is a slippery slope that I want no part of.  Sure we may have Community right now, but for how long?  And for those who say it’s just TV, I say, look around, look at the last 50 years of our history.  We are TV.