• The Atlantic, Thursday, February 12, 2009 9:45 AM

Moving NBC's Jay Leno to a 10 p.m., weekday slot is a sign of an old television order dying and a new one starting to come into focus. It will be the first of many such moves. Amid an economic downturn, the first casualty is likely to be the profusion of lavishly produced, scripted television that we've all taken for granted.

Behind the trend are two realities. First, the economics of scripted television is expensive and risky. Second, people today have cultural attention-deficit disorder, which afflicts consumers bombarded with a wave of entertainment choices. This is compounded by the fact that fewer people consume any given show and "can tell you how awesome that show is."

The result is prime time getting filled with talk shows that offer the promise of immediacy. Leno's content, for example, is news-driven, hyper-timely and ultimately disposable. It's inevitable that "Saturday Night Live," the "Today Show" and similar programs will soon appear regularly in prime time. Network viewers who don't pay for premium cable will end up getting the television equivalent of AM talk radio.

Read the whole story at The Atlantic »