Where Have I Been?

Where HAVE I been?

Well, I guess that's a good and fair question.

I have been typeface down in my own blog. When I first started writing the blog a little over a year ago, I thought of myself as a diarist. And being a retired guy, I thought this will provide some structure in my life and it will be like writing a weekly column. And pretty much for a year, I just about made the deadline. (Not really, I wrote a little better than one a month.) Shortly after I wrote the Leno piece (it was in September), believe it or not, I just forgot about the blog. I was hanging a major photographic show in the Mattituck/Laurel Library which Ms. Ellen and I have done for several years in a row without disrupting anything. Then I started getting a phone call here and an e-mail there asking where is the blog? At first I blamed it on being busy and told the inquiring minds that I'd be back at the keyboard shortly. And then it was February. And here I am.

Why did it take so long? I just don't know. It was going to be a splendid indoor winter activity. I pictured myself sitting by the fire with my laptop waxing eloquently about just about everything. Sometimes, even our easy daydreams do not come true. And other times they are delayed. Currently, I am sitting here in my photographic studio overlooking the frozen Miamogue Canal and the fireplace is downstairs. However, I am blogging.

Let's wrap up the Leno thing. By now, we all know that Leno is going back to late night as the NBC affiliates took big ratings hits on their 11 PM newscasts. For those of you who don't know, local newscasts mean big bucks for television stations. And when their ratings drop 30% because of a poor lead in (read: Leno) they lose a lot of revenue and they get cranky. I don't know how NBC missed that scenario ahead of time and what's worse, I don't know how I missed it either.

You also know that the odd late show host out is Conan O'Brien whom NBC decided to sacrifice in their $45 million Solomon decision as to what to do about all of the late night hosts they had on hand. Here's what I think. They made the wrong decision.

Granted, Conan's ratings were lackluster. They were, in total audience, half of what Leno had, but these viewers are much younger and more desirable to advertisers. Now, Leno and David Letterman will fight over the 50 plus set and Conan, who is rumored to be going to Fox, will scoop up the younger and more desirable audience that he was starting to build during his short stint at the Tonight Show.

Ok....so I have completed the rest of that blog.

Now, I must move on to more from the blog part of my brain and I will be back shortly to continue. I apologize for stepping away for a while. (sob) I didn't know you cared. I'll try to do better this year.