As someone working in scripted TV production…holy shit, this is bad news: NBC is replacing its entire 10pm hour with a nightly prime-time hour of Jay Leno.

If you look purely at the numbers, it absolutely makes sense for fourth-place NBC, whose ratings have completely tanked this year due to the fact that they put on some atrocious, atrocious television shows this fall, and who just completely gutted the ranks of their execs:

Though Mr. Leno will command an enormous salary, probably more than $30 million a year, the cost of his show will be a fraction of what a network pays for dramas at 10 p.m. Those average about $3 million an episode. That adds up to $15 million a week to fill the 10 p.m. hour. Mr. Leno’s show is expected to cost less than $2 million a week.

So let’s run some math here. Leno does about 46 weeks worth of shows, and at $2 mil a week that’s about $92 mil a year. Scripted shows do 22 episodes each, at 5 per week and $3 mil apiece that’s $330 mil a year. This change stands to save NBC Universal $238 million annually.

Let me repeat that: Paying Jay Leno $30 million a year will save NBC Universal almost a quarter billion dollars a year.

And for those of us on the scripted side of things, where network work has already been getting squeezed out by cheaper reality shows, this is a HUGE blow. Work has already been slowing because of the recession and the impending SAG strike.

For NBC to summarily declare they’re going to give up 5 hours a week is a brutal addition to the litany of problems facing everyone who works in scripted television. There are already too many people and not enough work to go around, and this is just going to make it infinitely worse.

I’m hopeful that cable’s going to continue to pick up the slack, but cable shows are, unfortunately, usually quite a bit less stable employment than network. Cable shows do 13-15 episodes in a normal season, or about 5-7 months worth of work. Networks shoot 22-24, or about 9-10 months worth of work.

Being on a good show on a network is almost like having a real job: If you’re in the office, you work almost year-round. If you’re in cable, you tend to bounce more from show to show, and it’s harder to form a team because everyone’s getting rotated into different schedules.

Anyway, we’ll see what happens. The common thread I’m finding in most commentary is that it’s a plan born of desperation on the part of NBC, but it brings to mind one of my favorite quotes from my favorite movie of all time, The Great Escape:

Now why didn’t anyone think of that before? It’s so stupid, it’s positively brilliant!

Courtesy of the Best Week Ever blog and a disturbingly large number of people I know from my days at The Ellen DeGeneres Show who are now working over at at Bonnie Hunt:

Bonnie Hunt and Jimmy Kimmel make imaginary meatloaf.

More updates when I’m not flat-out exhausted, probably sometime around Thanksgiving.

And the winner of this year’s First Show Deleted Off The Season Pass List is…Little Britain USA!

Sorry guys, you’re just not funny enough to overcome that hideous laugh track.

Although I will admit, had I gotten around to watching the two episodes of Fringe sitting on the TiVo, I might have deleted that first.

Prep is always pretty brutal. Trying to formulate a system to get everyone all the information they need, figuring out exactly what information they actually do need, and even simply trying to get a grip on who the fuck everyone is before we start shooting is a time-consuming and exhausting process.

Adding onto that the increasingly Herculean task of dragging myself to the gym an absolute minimum of 4 days a week to try and keep the weight loss going, and time for damn near anything starts to evaporate.

And of course, only in my world is it a problem that this is all happening as almost every show on television starts to premiere. Sure, I have a terabyte of storage space on the big TiVo, but I want to watch everything noooooooow. And by everything, I mean the 30+ hours of crap I plan to record every single week.

All in all, I just need the days to be longer. As much as the prep process sucks, I like my job. And the working out has left me feeling physically better than I have in a long time. But I need more sleep, and I could really use some more time to myself during the week.

Alas, for now, I’ll just keep rolling along, taking the occasional Saturday off the gym and then deciding to make up for it by doing a gym triathlon on Sunday. And sleeping like a hibernating bear on the weekends.

Sorry to stick y’all with another bullet-pointed post, but these things happen when you’re broke and unemployed and not doing much:

• Went sea kayaking with my friend Lisa this morning, which was great fun. We paddled at least 2-3 miles up the coast from the Malibu pier, and it was a really gorgeous day for it, too. However, I forgot how much seawater fucking stings when you get it in your eyes, and I also didn’t realize how much kelp that’s about three feet underwater could look like a shark. It did not help that I recently re-watched Jaws.

• Between the opening and closing ceremonies, are there any fireworks left in China? I know it’s the country that invented them, but man, that was an awful fucking lot of fireworks.

• Man, the Chinese do know how to put on a show. Between the fantastic opening ceremonies and the very nice closing ceremonies, the organizers of London 2012 must have been watching that and going, “…oh, bloody hell.” Particularly since the Jimmy Page and Leona Lewis portion of events was (with the arguable exception of Jackie Chan singing) the most flagrantly goofy part of the closing ceremony that often came across as a cross between Cirque de Soleil and Starlight Express.

• I’m sort of sad to see the Olympics go, since they were a wonderful, wonderful diversion from the fact that there is nothing good on television right now except Mad Men. However, I’m glad they’re going now, since I just did my annual “How the hell am I going to TiVo everything I want to watch?” spreadsheet and have determined that, at least before I start deleting things that suck, I have 26 hours of TV a week on my prime-time schedule. I think the “cancel season pass” key is going to have to be merciless this year, because I am not going to have time to actually watch all that.

• So speaking of television, does anybody have any desire for me to do a few TV reviews like I did last year? I basically talked about new shows as I watched them (making sure to divulge the ever-increasing number of shows I have friends working on), some briefly, some at greater length. Did you guys actually find that shit interesting, or was it like, “Dude…you watch too much TV”?

Finally, I have a job interview tomorrow, so hopefully these bullet pointed posts whining about how I’m bored stiff will soon be replaced with ones whining about how exhausted and overworked I am. Fingers crossed!

Ah, the dulcet tones of the Production Office when there’s a 10am call and a projected exceedingly late wrap - The fridge sadly cranking along, two keyboards clacking away as two sets of hands type bored IMs to friends lucky enough to not be stuck at work at almost 11pm on a Saturday night.

You’ll notice “the drone of the air conditioner” is not included on this list because…well, it’s not on. And the engineer who actually knows how to turn it on has gone home. And the windows don’t open here.

I’m getting a little sleepy. And I can’t leave until they wrap. This is going to be a looooong evening.

At least a) I have gotten every bit of work I possibly can out of the way, b) I did my PT exercises so I don’t have to when I get home, and c) I discovered that Netflix Watch Now has the Dragnet Blue Boy episode on it. This is the most gloriously paranoid half-hour of television ever.

After watching it with the poor PA who’s stuck here with me, he said, “You know, this was only fifteen years before Hill Street Blues. I can’t imagine how they came that far that quickly.” He’s damn right.

If you watched tonight’s episode of How I Met Your Mother, you will be highly, highly amused by the extremely long, hysterically funny song on this site referenced in the episode (warning: audio loads automatically).

They had way, way, way too much fun creating that. It’s almost as long as the goddamn episode, but sweet lord, it’s awesome.

I finally gave up on a couple shows I’d watched every episode of earlier this year, Prison Break and Desperate Housewives.

While in DH’s case I hear I may have given up right before the show creatively resurrected itself, this spoilery item indicates I checked out of Prison Break at the right time.

Because seriously? That’s the most implausible plot twist they’ve come up with, and this is a show that’s pretty much a maze of implausible plot twists.

“Cashmere Mafia on ABC….Brought to you by Valtrex!”

No better marquee sponsor for a thinly disguised remake of Sex and the City than a herpes medication.

That single line by the announcer made me laugh a lot harder than anything on the actual show.

Laz posed a question in the comments a few days ago, which I thought I might want to actually answer before it becomes irrelevant:

So tell us — Letterman circumventing the process and sorta crossing the line. Is that a good thing for the striking workers as a whole because it sets a possible precedent for bigger production companies, or does it take away from the solidarity of the union?

Actually, he’s not crossing the line, his production company actually wholly owns his show and signed a deal with the WGA (note: That link has some interesting analysis by Nikki Finke, who’s clearly sided with the writers over the main issues, but is still pretty good about calling bullshit on both sides when they deserve it).

This is extremely rare in these days of vertical integration, and at least a piece of almost every other show on television is owned by one of the major media conglomerates that comprises the AMPTP. Because Dave is independent, he was able to cut his own deal and get his show back on the air with writers.

Many people with more insight than I have taken a stab at predicting how this is going to turn out, with Tim Goodman of the San Francisco Chronicle hitting most of the short term points I would have.

Long term, it really depends on the ratings. If Letterman starts to win on a regular basis (and with writers vs. Jay’s flailing, it’s hard to see him not doing so), that’s going to light a fire under NBC, whose negotiators have been among the serious hardliners.

However, if viewers are more compelled by the high-wire-without-a-net of Jay Leno trying to be funny without writers, it could prove a serious setback to the WGA, and hasten the fracture of the union (and oddly, might end the strike faster).

The one thing that has to be kept in mind is that these late night shows are absolute cash cows. They cost little to produce, get good ratings, and command enormous fees from advertisers. The amount of profit from these shows is above and beyond almost anything else on television.

Viewing habits in this timeframe are hard to break, which is why NBC has got to be concerned that its 13 year grip on the lead could be lost for good if Letterman is back with his writers and Jay without his for long enough.

Overall, it’s a risky move, but if the ratings for Letterman (and Craig Ferguson, whose show Letterman’s company also wholly owns and is also coming back with his writers) wind up way ahead of the competition, it’s going to put an awful lot of pressure on NBC Universal to drop their hard line and to help convince others to drop theirs.

This week won’t be the most telling: There will definitely be a “what-the-hell-is-he-gonna-do?” spike in interest in Leno. Next week, when people have had their chance to see what he’s doing and decide whether or not it’s worth watching, will be the key.