Jay Leno fiasco motivates Citytv to ‘Better Serve Audiences’

Last week’s bombshell that the 10 p.m. Jay Leno Show wasn’t long for this world led one to wonder how much this decision from NBC was costing Citytv — whose semi-national downtown brand, under relatively new Rogers Media ownership, was taking a risk while also saving themselves hassle. “Great Movies” were the steady weeknight staple of Citytv when it was a property of CHUM, through 2007 — and while they sought to wiggle out of that commitment, the CRTC held them to a past promise to run one Canadian flick per week, now buried on Saturday nights. Toronto-based writers about television were evidently too preoccupied with the press tour antics in Pasadena to bother digging around for how exactly Citytv planned to replace Leno, let alone how many dollars this gambit burned.

When some detail finally emerged, it was through the website of Marketing magazine — a publication owned by the same company as Citytv. “Leno was a perfect fit,” lamented Rogers television sales executive vice-president Mitch Dent. “Everything before that was pretty makeshift.” And while the company has taken the stand that local TV is capable paying for itself — a necessary position when you also own a cable company asked by other broadcasters to help pay for local news — it wasn’t like Leno was going to be replaced by an in-house chat show, just a shuffle of American acquisitions that somehow manages to make room for America’s Funniest Home Videos. NBC’s epic failure wasn’t regarded as an impediment to the 11 p.m. telecast of CityNews in Toronto, claimed longtime late anchor Mark Dailey, in contrast to the powerful U.S. affiliate stations backhandedly hounding Conan O’Brien out of a job. But the dominoes had to fall somewhere, and news that Anne Mroczkowski was relieved of her duties as part of the longest-serving 6 p.m. anchor team on Canadian television (with Gord Martineau) — along with 60 other staffers canned across Canada — may have had something to do with it. The official release: “Citytv Restructures Television Operations To Improve Business and Better Serve Audiences” — with no mention of the fate of their planned local 24-hour news channel. So, like Dailey was saying after throws for the last four months, “Thanks, Jay!”

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