Late-Night Shift Sinking, NBC Wants Leno Back in Old Slot

Faced with the failure of the biggest recent gamble in television, NBC is shuffling its late-night deck one more time. The network has a plan in the works to restore Jay Leno to his old spot at 11:35 each weeknight for a half-hour, while pushing the man who replaced him, Conan O'Brien, to a starting time of 12:05 a.m. Mr. O'Brien would then have a full hour.

The change, if completed, would represent a retreat from the network's strategy of replacing Mr. Leno, who drove "The Tonight Show" to the top of the late-night ratings, with the younger, hipper Mr. O'Brien, then trying to save money in prime time by replacing expensive dramas with Mr. Leno's show at 10 p.m. The moves are being driven by pressure from NBC's affiliated stations, which have seen ratings for their late-night local newscasts plummet since September. That was when NBC began "The Jay Leno Show," a prime-time version of Mr. Leno's old late-night show. Mr. O'Brien succeeded Mr. Leno as host of "The Tonight Show" in June.

Though Mr. Leno's prime-time show has not fallen below the ratings guarantees that NBC gave to advertisers, it has averaged only about five million viewers a night. The NBC station managers have blamed consistently low lead-in audiences for much of the falloff in their news ratings — and local stations rely on news programs for the majority of their revenue. The affiliates are due to meet with NBC on Jan. 21.