A study is showing that if the network had not removed Jay Leno from prime time their loses would have been in the millions. In November 2009 late night news audience dropped by more than 25% compared with the previous year.
This is clearly why the networks put pressure to get Jay off the 10PM weekday slot. They see Leno’s poor ratings as a lead in to their programs as the reason the news audience’s have dropped. The networks felt that if Jay Leno stayed in the 10PM time slot it would have led to millions of more dollars lost.