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TagsBY BOB HOLT
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
Michelle Obama was a guest on "The Tonight Show" last week, but employees of the late-night institution may not have realized that the election issue of unemployment was about to affect them.
"The Tonight Show" will be reducing its staff, and other staff members will be taking pay cuts, including long-time host Jay Leno. Sources say the program employed between 150 and 200 people before the cutbacks.
Between 20 and 25 people are said to have been laid off by the show, the Los Angeles Times reports. "The Tonight Show" budget will fall from about $2.3 million a week to $1.7 million.
According to Jacksonville.com, Leno was earning between $25 million to $30 million a year to host the show, and his salary will be cut to around $20 million. A portion of NBC Universal was purchased by Comcast in 2011 for $6.2 billion. Despite high ratings, Tonight doesn’t make a huge profit for NBC.
"The Tonight Show" usually comes in first in late night television ratings, but viewer numbers have declined since Leno regained the hosting job from Conan O’Brien in 2010. Leno first took over for the late Johnny Carson in 1992, and hosted until O’Brien took the job in June 2009.
Leno has said publicly that he banks his "Tonight Show" earnings and lives on the money he makes on the stand-up comedy circuit, according to the Huffington Post.
A spokesman for Leno said, according to deadline.com, "Jay’s foremost concern is for the wonderful people who work for The Tonight Show. He did what was necessary to ensure their well-being.”
