How I'd Fix It (NBC Latenight Edition)

Second in an irregular series

NBC latenight is in turmoil, caused by the disappointing results for Leno at 10pm, and Conan's inability to hold the 11:35pm audience he inherited.

Looks like the solution NBC is going for is give Leno 30 minutes, and push back their other shows.

I don't think that's the best solution, here's how I'd fix it and make everyone more or less happy.

M-Th give each latenight host a 45 minute show, Leno at 11:35, Conan at 12:20, Fallon at 1:05. Have one sitdown guest per show, one musical guest, and the usual filler for the rest.

Make Friday nights 'live' comedy night, and give each a 90 minute show to end each week with. Leno gets 8-9:30p, Conan gets 9:30-11p, and Fallon gets 11:35p-1:05a. Have each show book one guest, one stand-up or other comedy act, and one musical act that gets two songs each night. Each week they could rotate which host does a special live show in a different market for their Friday show. It'd give the affiliates something to promote, it would increase the profile of their latenight shows, and even with the travel, it'd still probably be an economical way to program a chunk of airtime that doesn't draw a whole bunch of viewers. I figure each host could do one third of 42 live Friday shows each year in 42 different cities, with each visiting 14 cities as they rotate which host gets sent each week to markets outside of their home bases.

Giving Conan a weekly primetime gig might help assuage hurt feelings for being pushed back to late late night, and same goes for Leno, he'd still have a primetime show one night a week, and for Fallon, he could turn his Friday show into a semi-SNL one night early sort of thing.

NBC screwed up big with how they handled Leno and the Tonight Show, they probably should have just let Leno go, and backed Conan 100%, or they should have torn up Conan's contract and let him leave if they thought they made a mistake by pushing out Leno, by trying to keep and please both, they diluted their brand, lost audience, and pissed off their talent. None of that is fixable, now, the damage has been done, but I think shorter M-Th shows combined with an expanded Friday show might be an innovative way to mitigate some of the damage.

How I'd Fix It (Survivor Edition)

First in an irregular series:

There are many broken things in this world, some require Modest Proposals, others Immodest Proposals, still others just need a little fixing. Survivor is one such thing that just needs a little fixing.

Here's how I'd do it.

Survivor is broken. Most seasons devolve into a battle of high school style cliques rather than 'surviving' and competing, and more often than not, the best competitors are booted by cabals of inferior players (though, given the rule structure of the game, an argument can be made that being inferior at the challenges is a sound strategy for winning the game, so it's as much the fault of the producers as it is the competitors for behaving as they do).

Here's how to make the challenges really count, and make it a true contest of wits, and skill rather than clique management.

Pare down the number of contestants to eight men, eight women, and have them all live as one 'tribe' in camp, but during competitions, have them compete as four separate gender balanced groups for each challenge, and let them pick their own teams. Each day of competition, have three different kinds of challenges, one physical, one mental, and one based on exhibiting mastery of a survival skill as a team. Every challenge would be set up to have clear results as to who came in first, second, third, and fourth. A simple scoring system of 4 points for 1st, 3 points for 2nd, 2 for 3rd, and 1 point for 4th. The team that has the most points after the three challenges get a reward for that day, and those four players become team captains for the next day's challenge, the team with the least amount of points gets exiled (the exile island thing is an interesting aspect of the game, so this allows it to be kept).

Points are won as a team each day, but during these challenge rounds, each individual survivor keeps their own points, and the top two men, and top two women become the final team captains where they get to pick the teams for the final elimination rounds.

In the finals, it's head to head, one team versus one team in a playoff format (1 seed v 4 seed, 2 seed v 3 seed, with the winning teams facing of in the final, finals). Make the reward for the winning team $2M, with the added twist of the twelve losing contestants deciding which 'winner' gets $1m, $500k, and $250k (that way there's still a jury aspect to the show, since some people like that crap for some reason).

These changes emphasize group play, while still rewarding individual excellence. It allows for cliques to develop, but any clique that relies solely on how they get along will fare poorly in the overall contest. It means all the folks who are cast get to stick around for the majority of the season, so if you have a favorite in the show, you're guaranteed to see them most of the season. Having each set of challenges made up of both physical and mental tasks means that teams must find a balance of competitors to succeed in the long run. By eliminating eliminations until the very final playoffs means that by the end of the run all that emotional and psychological crap that some folks enjoy about the show would still come to the surface, and any viewers who are turned off by seeing competitive prowess get actively punished by the other 'survivors' each season might be lured back to watching this show.

Explain to me how this wouldn't be a better show?