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'Southland's' Ben McKenzie on 'Leno': 'I'm glad it failed'
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"Southland" begins its second life on TNT Tuesday night (Jan. 12) after being rescued from NBC's cancellation pile last year. And given the state of the show's former home, Ben McKenzie is understandably happy to be on cable.McKenzie's show was at least in part casualty of NBC's "Jay Leno Show" strategy. Now that NBC has scrapped Leno in primetime, McKenzie -- while noting that Leno is "a great guy" -- tells "Extra," "I'm glad it failed."
"Things have worked out in a good way," McKenzie says. "Now we can make the show we wanted to make on cable."
"Southland" aired at 10 p.m. ET Thursdays on NBC last season, but was moved to 9 p.m. Fridays when NBC rolled out its Leno-fied schedule. The network first delayed the premiere, then canceled the show altogether. Ratings weren't great (a little under 6 million viewers in the spring), and NBC Entertainment president Angela Bromstad has said she was concerned the show was too serialized.
After several weeks of negotiations, the John Wells-produced show landed at TNT (a corporate brother of the show's studio, Warner Bros. TV). It premieres at 10 p.m. ET Tuesday with an extended cut of the pilot. TNT will air the seven episodes that ran on NBC last season plus the six shows produced for season 2 before NBC pulled the plug.
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Photo credit: TNT
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We're ALL glad Leno failed. And certainly not unexpected.
I'm glad Conan failed.
Leno will be back beating everybody else.
very sad TNT is not available in Canada. There are a lot of fans in Canada. They should find a way to air it here...
Southland was, and is, awesome. Such a solid show. God, NBC sucks.
Hope it does great on TNT. I'll be watching.
I'm looking forward to Southland. It's a great show.
Just the fact the show was too "serialized"... Really?
Isn't that like saying the audience is too stupid to follow storylines...
Not everyone wants an open and closed episode of every show, every week (unless you love CBS).
Didn't Bravo air episodes of 'Southland' in Canada? Hopefully they will pick up the new ones too.
@ anonymous... Conan didn't fail as much as it was NBC failing with their entire strategy...
Did NBC lose a lot of The Tonight Show audience when Jay left? Sure... but I would assume that was to be expected. Maybe they didn't expect the ratings to be AS low as they got, but surely they anticipated a decent drop off until Conan could build off his audience he brought from Late Night...
Leno did NOT fail. The show itself was fine. Yes it was simalar to his former show but actually held steady around 5.5-sometimes 7+ million viewers...he has plenty of fans and always sells out all his standup shows he does in his free time...the ratings were low for primetime BUT..WAY less costly to NBC than making expensive dramas five days a week!! Therefore his ratings were easily justified and in NO WAY a failure But the affiliates were whining that they were losing money that is what forced the change.
In the end it is Conan/NBC who are at fault for this mess....Conan cried like a baby to NBC saying he would leave if he didn't get the tonight show. NBC was stupid enough to listen went on to make a mess with its late night situation by forcing Leno out when he was still dominating late night. Then Conan takes over and gets low low low ratings...so if anything Conan is the one that FAILED!!!!! I like both of them and think they are both halarious but people need to see this situation in the correct perspective!
Jay Leno is lame.
First he screwed Letterman, then he screwed himself, now he screwed Conan. If NBC is the titanic then jay is most likely the Iceberg.