Wednesday, September 16, 2009

How much does Leno's suckiness cost?

Hater gets down to basics:

How did I get that (probably incorrect, knowing my math skills) estimate? Well, according to the NY Times, Leno's yearly salary is "probably more than $30 million" and The Jay Leno Show is "expected to cost less than $2 million a week." Assuming the show lasts a year, that's 46 weeks of shows at 5 shows per week, or 230 shows a year at a cost of about $530,000 per episode. Last night's show featured 6 segments: Monologue, unending car wash singing bit, Jerry Seinfeld interview, terminally unfunny Obama mock interview, Rihanna, Jay-Z, Kanye interview/performance, Headlines (aka Vagina Jokes I Found In The Paper). These bits obviously don't cost the same amount of money to produce, but assuming they did, each segment would cost NBC roughly $88,300.

I counted 16 jokes in that piece (and I'm being generous), which means that the utterly worthless tort/tart reform joke alone cost about $5,500, or one month's rent in a large NYC apartment in a super-desireable neighborhood.


$30 million?

The Man, The Myth, The Bio

East Bay, California, United States
Problem: I have lots of opinions on politics and culture that I need to vent. If I do not do this I will wind up muttering to myself, and that's only like one or two steps away from being a hobo. Solution: I write two blogs. A political blog that has some evident sympathies (pro-Obama, mostly liberal though I dissent on some issues, like guns and trade) and a culture blog that does, well, cultural essays in a more long-form manner. My particular thing is taking overrated things (movies, mostly, but other things too) down a peg and putting underrated things up a peg. I'm sort of the court of last resort, and I tend to focus on more obscure cultural phenomena.