• Chicago Tribune, Sunday, August 16, 2009 10:18 PM

As Jay Leno is headed to prime time, a whole other kind of math is at work. For NBC Universal, the success or failure of "The Jay Leno Show" is likely to be measured less by how it fares versus the network competition than by how its profit margins compare to the more expensive scripted dramas NBC previously developed and aired in that hour.

"You're in a business to make a profit and if the show is profitable, then it's successful," Leno says. "We can do five or six of these shows for the price of one 'CSI: Miami,' and in this age of diminished markets, that's what you need to do," he says. According to Horizon Media, the cost of the Leno show will be about one-fifth that of a scripted drama. And with original programs 46 weeks a year, NBC expects Leno to surge against reruns and when something newsy happens that people will want his take on.

Moving to prime time also means Leno will no longer front-load his show the way he did on "Tonight," when the challenge was keeping viewers from going to sleep. He's now responsible for delivering viewers to late local news, traditionally major profit centers for stations, so comedy features such as "Jaywalking" will be at the end of the hour.

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