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By Root 1425 0

were specifically in the city on this night because it was the middle of “upfront week”—a long-standing television industry rite of spring during which the broadcast networks trot out their newly selected programs for the fall in hopes of luring cash commitments from advertisers. The gathering swarm outside the theater, arriving in packs of five and six, was mostly under thirty-five and was much better dressed and significantly whiter than the average American population. If they barely paid attention to the noise of the demonstration—or the large inflated rat looming over the proceedings—it was because they had no vested interest in the protesters’ cause. Largely buyers from ad agencies, honchos from the big Hollywood production studios, or executives from NBC’s affiliated television stations—the broadcast stations owned by other companies that carried NBC’s programs—they had turned up at Town Hall to see a night of entertainment—and to get a first look at what NBC had been telling the world was the “new paradigm” for the television industry:

Jay Leno at ten o’clock.

The network had put together the event on short notice, announcing it only a month earlier as NBC’s Comedy Showcase—a night devoted to the great tradition of NBC comedy, as exemplified by shows like Seinfeld , The Office, and Saturday Night Live. In truth, it was all about grabbing some attention during upfront week for what Alan Wurtzel, the head of research for NBC, had labeled “clearly the highest priority for the network” going into the fall television season: the new, five-night-a-week Jay Leno Show.

The evening was built around an appearance by Jay, the perennial late-night leader, now in his final weeks as host of The Tonight Show, doing his thing: classic, joke-intensive stand-up. The organizers had blocked it out so that Leno would walk out onstage precisely at ten p.m.—his symbolic debut at that hour.

The time element was one reason the evening’s show was set to start relatively late—nine p.m.—for a Broadway performance. The other was NBC’s belated entry into upfront week. The network was actually squeezing itself into a day that was technically the property of ABC, and it had to be sure to allow enough time for its advertising clients to take in the ABC presentation, which started at four, and get a little dinner before heading back to midtown for some laughs. (NBC also had to assuage any fears at ABC that it was going to pull people away from its competitor’s event.)

According to the long-established pecking order of upfront week, Tuesday was slated for ABC’s presentation, which was routinely staged at Lincoln Center uptown. CBS owned Wednesday, with Carnegie Hall the somewhat incongruously grand setting. Fox, the newest of the networks, was usually relegated to Thursday and whatever venue that network could scrounge up. In recent years, Fox had turned to the less than ideal City Center after some infelicitous, though memorable, forays to other locations—such as the flight deck of the aircraft carrier Intrepid (hard to get to, hard to navigate around, and hard to hear anything inside the cavernous tent that Fox had erected) and the 69th Regiment Armory, which had established a new low for upfronts in 2006 by being hothouse humid, leaky roofed (it was teeming outside) and redolent of urine. (On top of that, one Fox executive had turned up onstage so drunk that he couldn’t pronounce the word “Tostitos.”)

Monday, by tradition, belonged to NBC, which had the supreme advantage of having its 30 Rock headquarters located right across Fiftieth Street from the pinnacle of Manhattan showbiz arenas, Radio City Music Hall. But the hall went vacant that year because NBC had abdicated its leadoff position in the upfront lineup. That allowed Fox to grab Monday for itself and thereby make a statement: The network was taking its bows first, a post it could legitimately claim it deserved, having clawed its way to the top in the ratings competition that counted most in the TV business—the battle for eyeballs owned by viewers between the ages of eighteen and