Financial News

The former downtown-area Wonder Bread plant being developed into an artists’ haven is getting $597,000 in historic preservation funding from the state.

Gov. Ted Strickland’s office on Friday announced $28.3 million in Ohio Historic Preservation Tax Credit awards to 13 projects, one of which is the Wonder Bread building. The latest announcement is the fourth and final preservation award under the state’s $1.57 billion job creation stimulus package, which set aside $120 million for such credits.

The plant, which Wonder Bread owner Interstate Bakeries Corp. shut down last year after to deciding to shift operations out of state, is under development as a mix of arts-oriented retail, exhibition, office and rehearsal space. Arts entrepreneur Adam Brouillette formed Wonderland Columbus to serve as the master tenant that will go about filling the 64,600-square-foot building.

The state said the project in applying for the tax credit pledged to preserve the industrial heritage of the building along with the Wonder Bread sign that has become a visual landmark in Italian Village. The tax credits fund up to a quarter of qualified rehabilitation spending.

Source

Provides fast cash advance payday loans nationwide with no credit checks required.

NewPage Corp.’s top two executives have resigned, along with a third executive.

The Miami Township-based paper manufacturer announced Tuesday that President and Chief Executive Officer E. Thomas Curley and Chairman Mark Suwyn have left NewPage. Michael Edicola, vice president human resources, also resigned.

Robert Nardelli, CEO of Cerberus Operating and Advisory Co., an affiliate of the controlling stockholder of NewPage, will fill the role of non-executive chairman of NewPage and its affiliates, according to a statement.

NewPage’s board has formed an executive search committee to find a new CEO. The committee will consider both internal and external candidates for the position. The company will broadcast an investor and analyst conference to discuss the leadership changes Tuesday at 11 a.m.

In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, NewPage said it will give Curley $1 low fee payday loans.1 million in severance pay - equal to twice his base pay, as part of his contract - as well as a $165,000 prorated performance bonus.

Suwyn will receive a $2 million severance payout. Edicola will get $650,000 for severance and a $243,000 prorated performance bonus.

The resignations were effective June 11.

The company reported its profit dropped 62 percent in the first quarter of 2010, despite an increase in sales. The company had planned an IPO, but withdrew that in May.

NewPage is the largest coated paper manufacturer in North America. It owns paper mills in Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Nova Scotia, Canada with annual capacity to produce 4.4 million tons of paper. The company has about 7,500 employees, including 400 in the Dayton area.

Source

BP’s U.S. shares rallied Thursday after the London-based company said "is not aware of any reason" for a 16% plunge in the shares the day before.

On Day 52 of the Gulf oil spill, BP (BP) issued a statement saying it "faces this situation as a strong company" and it will "continue to keep the market fully informed of further developments."

BP said it is "generating significant cash flow" and has a "strong and valuable" oil reserve, both of which will help it survive the response to the spill.

The statement helped push BP’s U.S. shares up 12.3% to close at $32.78, but its London stock closed more than 6.7% lower.

BP’s shares tumbled $5.48 to $29.20 Wednesday on volume nine times above normal. The drop came amid some speculation about the company’s future — in a Fortune interview, oil analyst Matt Simmons said BP’s "lawsuits, cleanup and other expenses" will force the company into bankruptcy within the month.

It’s been more than seven weeks since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, killing 11 people and causing the oil spill.

On April 19, the day before the disaster, BP shares closed at $58.86. Since that time the stock has plunged by 50.4%.

Below book value: Even with Thursday’s surge, BP shares are still trading below their book value, an important metric for investors.

The book value is a company’s hard assets - in BP’s case, its oil fields and rigs - minus its intangible assets and its liabilities. BP’s book value is $33.25 per share.

When a stock price is trading below its book value, it shows that investors have little confidence that the company is worth even as much as its assets.

Unrealistic fears? But a report from Oppenheimer Equity Research called Wednesday’s sell-off "panic selling," adding, "investors dumped BP shares on fear of unrealistically high potential liabilities ."

The report said BP shares currently price in $60 billion worth of potential liabilities, "which we think is very unrealistic."

Oppenheimer also shrugged off fears that the company will go bankrupt, be acquired by a rival or fire chief executive Tony Hayward.

"Driving BP out of business would not clean the Gulf Coast, pay plaintiffs or help its 23,000 employees," the report said. "We think such action is both unnecessary and unlikely."

Dividend worries: In addition to the bankruptcy fears, there’s concern about BP’s quarterly dividend that is slated to be paid out June 21.

Last week, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., sent a letter to BP chief executive Tony Hayward saying it was "unfathomable that BP would pay out a dividend … before the total cost of [the] oil spill cleanup is estimated."

Schumer and Wyden cited a Credit Suisse report that said the total cleanup cost could reach $37 billion if oil continues gushing until a relief well is completed in August.

On Tuesday, a group of 50 House Representatives sent a letter outlining similar points.

Oppenheimer’s report said BP’s balance sheet isn’t an issue, with projected operating cash flow of $34 billion in 2010 and $37 billion in 2011.

"While we think BP can financially sustain the dividend, we are not sure if it can do so politically," the report said.

The report noted BP pays one of the highest dividends in its sector. In fact, even if BP slashed its dividend by 50% it would still be the highest yield among its competitors. 

Source

The Federal Communications Commission is expected to unveil a new proposal Thursday to require Internet service providers to give customers equal access to all available data, according to a published report.

FCC chairman Julius Genachowski is expected to outline his proposal to adopt Net neutrality rules for regulation of broadband lines, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The FCC has been trying to impose new regulations since 2005 that would force cable and phone companies such as Comcast (CMCSA, Fortune 500), AT&T (ATT) and Verizon (VZ, Fortune 500) to treat all Internet data equally. Last October, the FCC voted to move forward on crafting so-called "Net neutrality" rules.

But the rule-making was held up by a federal appeals court decision last month stating that the FCC does not have the authority to stop Internet provider Comcast from bottlenecking its customers’ file sharing quick pay day loan.

The case originated in 2007, when Comcast subscribers realized that the company was interfering with their ability to use peer-to-peer applications such as BitTorrent to swap files that consume large amounts of bandwidth. The court ruling said that Comcast defended the practice of interfering with the applications in order to manage scarce network capacity.

A Comcast spokeswoman downplayed the issue and denied that her company was blocking access.

The office of the FCC chairman did not immediately return a request for comment on the Journal report. 

Source

Despite whatever Benjamin Franklin might have had to say on the subject of earned pennies, a general-purpose gift card saved is money wasted. And new federal regulations aren’t likely to change that.

New gift card rules announced by the Federal Reserve on Tuesday rankle some consumer groups because they curtail — but don’t eliminate — the practice of slapping some consumers with fees for not spending balances fast enough.

The rules, which apply to cards purchased after Aug. 22, prohibit gift card issuers from charging fees in the first year after a card was purchased and, after then, from charging more than one fee in a month. The cards also can’t expire in fewer than five years, and all terms and conditions needs to be disclosed at the time of purchase.

That isn’t enough, according to consumer groups that for years have pushed for tougher rules in two categories of gift cards. Consumers spend an estimated $50 billion annually in traditional store-credit cards — those that can be spent only at one retailer — and so-called general purpose cards, which are branded with credit card logos and can be used wherever that credit card is accepted.

The store cards rarely carry fees, and expiration dates on those cards seldom are less than five years. That’s because retailers want to bring cardholders to the stores, where they are likely to spend above and beyond their card balances.

General purpose cards are another story. Because these cards aren’t designed to drive traffic to any one retailer, these cards make their money from the consumers themselves. A $100 card might cost a couple of dollars more at the time of purchase, plus card holders might have to pay additional service fees, inactivity penalties or other monthly charges that can range from less than $1 to more than $10.

Consumer groups have long characterized those post-purchase fees as excessive.

Those groups scored a victory last year, when Congress passed landmark credit card reform. A provision in the CARD Act set minimum gift card restrictions, and it empowered the Federal Reserve to go further, including capping the size of inactivity and service fees that can be charged to card balances one year after the cards are issued.

But the Fed didn’t expand on the rules required by Congress. "Basically, it’s still anything goes," said Michelle Jun, a lawyer for Consumers Union, the non-profit group that publishes Consumer Reports magazine.

Consumers Union, based in Yonkers, N.Y., objects to post-purchase fees and believes any charge for the gift card should be assessed only on the front end — at the time of purchase no fax pay day loans. That way, she said, consumers won’t be penalized for holding onto a card for more than a year.

"If you are giving this as a gift, you don’t expect for the value of your gift to be whittled away by someone else," Jun said.

Linda Sherry, national priorities director of the advocacy group Consumer Action, said post-purchase service fees were little more than a money grab. After all, she said, most "spend-anywhere" cards generate money at the time the cards are sold and through fees charged to those retailers where the cards are used.

Consumer Action, based in San Francisco, opposes all post-purchase fees and card expirations, Sherry said, because the group believes most consumers treat the spend-anywhere cards as a cash equivalent.

Although the fee restrictions cover both retail and general-purpose gift cards, chain stores generally don’t include service fees on their cards. However, fees are common with general purpose cards.

General purpose cards represent a $4 billion segment of the $50 billion gift card industry, according to a study from the Consumer Federation of America released in October.

But the growing sales of those spend-anywhere cards would have been cut short by caps on service fees, said Judith Rinearson, a lawyer for the Network Branded Prepaid Card Association and a partner in the New York office of St. Louis-based Bryan Cave.

Rinearson said consumer groups’ preference for rolling into the purchase price the full cost of the cards would raise prices significantly for card holders who exhaust balances within the first year.

"The consumer groups — for reasons I don’t understand — have this visceral hatred of gift cards," Rinearson said.

"They would make it more expensive for everyone because a small percentage of consumers might pay more on the back end."

Rinearson is generally supportive of the new rules, but she said the industry would struggle to comply with disclosure language that will require card issuers to disclose many rules and conditions on the cards themselves.

Jon Galloway, a spokesman for Missouri Treasurer Clint Zweifel, said the new rules wouldn’t change a state requirement that requires card issuers to surrender the balances of expired or inactive gift card accounts to the state’s unclaimed assets fund. In the fiscal year that ended June 30, Missouri claimed $1.02 million in gift card credit.

Source

Now that Citigroup and AIG are rolling in the bucks, GMAC is looking like the most egregious zombie bank of them all.

A report released Thursday questions the wisdom of the government’s decision to spend $17 billion propping up the money-losing maker of car and home loans.

The report, released by the Congressional Oversight Panel, noted that the White House thinks taxpayers will lose at least $6 billion on the GMAC bailout. Two members of the panel projected that losses could reach $10 billion, based on the expected cost of the bailouts of GM and Chrysler.

But that’s not the worst of it. Thanks to Treasury’s decision to avoid a comprehensive restructuring of the company, pre-bailout shareholders in GMAC — including private equity firm Cerberus — could still profit on their investments, the report said.

And while the costs are mounting, the panel, chaired by Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren, said it remains unclear what Treasury accomplished by shielding GMAC from bankruptcy.

The panel also questioned the government’s decision to bail out the entire company rather than simply supporting its auto-lending unit, and how GMAC might return to sufficient profitability to begin repaying its obligations.

In its report, the panel said it "is deeply concerned that Treasury has not required GMAC to lay out a clear path to viability or a strategy for fully repaying taxpayers." It called on Treasury to "clearly articulate its exit strategy from GMAC."

GMAC chief Michael Carpenter told the panel last month that the company hopes to conduct an initial public offering within two years to repay taxpayers. But to say observers are skeptical about the prospects for an IPO would be an understatement.

"In my view, GMAC badly needs to be restructured before it will have a real possibility of revival," bank watcher Chris Whalen of Institutional Risk Analytics told the panel last month. He said the company’s misguided expansion beyond car lending "threatens the viability of GMAC."

Thursday’s report comes at a time when the prospects for some of the most notorious bailout beneficiaries have started to turn up a bit.

AIG (AIG, Fortune 500) is on track to repay $51 billion of federal aid, thanks to two recent asset-sale agreements. Fortune’s report that value investor Bruce Berkowitz is buying Citi (C, Fortune 500) shares helped spark a rally this week in that beaten-down stock.

The outlook for what is shaping up as the costliest bailout, the 2008 takeover of Fannie Mae (FNM, Fortune 500) and Freddie Mac (FRE, Fortune 500), isn’t brightening — but at least it’s clear how the companies fit into the government’s effort to support an economic rebound.

That’s not at all the case for GMAC, which is best known as a car lender but has been hemorrhaging billions of dollars thanks to its subprime home lending spree.

GMAC’s mortgage operations lost $15 billion over the past three years and the company has spent recent months attempting to limit its exposure to further losses at its main mortgage business, ResCap.

The report suggests a bankruptcy for all or part of GMAC, particularly ResCap, should have been given strong consideration when the bailout decision was initially made in 2008 and again when additional support was injected in May and December 2009.

But the government instead chose to support the entire company, first by permitting GMAC to convert to a Federal Reserve-regulated bank holding company and then by administering repeated infusions of taxpayer support. Last year’s bailout decisions, the report says, appear to have been clouded by Treasury’s desire to avoid taking a loss on its initial $5 billion investment.

Allowing GMAC to proceed as is looks especially questionable in light of the $6 billion that the company has channeled to ResCap, which it is trying to sell.

"Given ResCap’s limited available capital and liquidity, its ongoing existence and viability have remained highly doubtful without continued contributions from its parent," the report said. "GMAC’s contributions to ResCap would not have been possible, however, had GMAC not received TARP assistance."

Treasury isn’t the only arm of the government exposed to GMAC’s problems. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the guarantor of the increasingly stressed-out deposit insurance fund, is backing $7.4 billion of GMAC bonds issued under a crisis-era program that helped to restart the credit markets.

That program has so far been a success, drawing $10 billion in fees for the FDIC and allowing banks to issue more than $300 billion of low-cost debt.

GMAC sold bonds this month without federal backing for the first time since the crisis. But the company is paying a steep 8% yield on those bonds, which the panel noted will weigh on its finances.

What’s more, GMAC will have to repeat the feat many times to have any hope of standing on its own two feet. The company has $59 billion of debt maturing over the next three years, the Congressional Oversight Panel said. 

Source

Greece’s hospitals, airports and schools were shut today as unions stage the second general strike this year to protest Prime Minister George Papandreou’s latest budget cuts to curb the European Union’s biggest deficit.

An air-traffic controllers’ walkout forced the cancellation of flights, including 479 from Athens International Airport, the country’s largest. Bus and subway drivers, doctors, power workers, journalists and teachers are also protesting 4.8 billion euros ($6.5 billion) of wage cuts and tax increases.

“The measures taken so far are unjust, demanding sacrifices from workers that aren’t being demanded from the employers, businessmen and bankers that created this crisis,” said Stathis Anestis, spokesman for the GSEE union, which represents 2 million workers in the private sector.

The government’s latest budget cuts, the third package of measures this year, has triggered a new wave of protests in Greece, while being praised by EU officials and rewarded by investors. The risk premium investors demand to buy Greece debt over comparable German bonds has narrowed from an 11-year high on Jan. 28 and Greece was able to sell 5 billion euros of bonds to finance a day after announcing the package.

Storming Parliament

The Athens benchmark general index has gained 6 percent since the measures were announced on March 3, outperforming other western European benchmarks.

Greek workers are anything but supportive. On March 5, striking workers shut down transport and tried to storm parliament as lawmakers passed the new budget cuts that Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou said will show EU allies and investors that Greece is making good on its deficit pledges.

“The main risk is not that adjustment in Greece is not feasible, but that Greek society will refuse to shoulder the inevitable near-term economic pain,” Deutsche Bank analysts including Thomas Mayer, wrote in a research note.

The tax increases and wage cuts are likely to be a further drag on growth this year, complicating the government’s efforts to reduce the deficit as percent of gross domestic product. Deutsche Bank forecasts c contraction of 4 percent in 2010, twice last year’s pace. The Finance Ministry yesterday said the forecast for a 0.3 percent contraction included in the January deficit-reduction plan, is too optimistic and now sees the economy shrinking at least 0.8 percent this year.

Greece will announce final fourth-quarter GDP today after a preliminary report on Feb credit reports free. 12 showed the economy contracted 2.6 percent in the three months through December from a year earlier.

EU Pressure

Investors and EU officials have ratcheted up pressure on Greece to do more to ensure it meets its deficit target of 8.7 percent of gross domestic product this year, from 12.7 percent in 2009, as the country sinks deeper into recession.

Concerns about Greece’s ability to tame the budget gap prompted speculation that the country would need a bailout and could be forced to abandon the single currency. The euro has declined almost 5 percent this year as Greece’s financial woes raised questions about the strength of monetary union.

Eurobank and National Bank of Greece SA may report their lowest quarterly profit in at least five years as loan losses mount during the economic slump. Eurobank, the country’s second- largest lender, may say today that fourth-quarter net income fell to 3.7 million euros, according to the average of six analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

Popularity Sliding

Papandreou’s approval rating slipped more than 10 percentage points over the last two months as he unveiled the raft of budget measures, a poll showed on March 9. He still commands the support of a majority of Greeks, with 52 percent having a positive opinion of him, according to the survey by GPO pollsters for Mega Television.

Almost 60 percent of those surveyed disapproved of the latest budget cuts and more than 65 percent said the measures were “unfair.” In a Kapa Research poll for To Vima newspaper on March 7, which also showed Papandreou with majority support, 86.9 percent said the measures would provoke social unrest.

His socialist Pasok Party enjoys a 10-seat majority in parliament and was able to pass the latest budget measures in the legislature on March 5, two days after announcing the plan.

“The protests, unrest and violence all this time are instigated by those who are attempting to preserve for their own benefit all the ills that resulted in the Greek people being beggars to international markets,” Dimitris Daskalopoulos, head of the Athens-based Federation of Greek industries, said in a speech yesterday. “Who are they calling on us to protest against and demand from? Is it maybe against ourselves?”

Source

Japan’s economy grew faster than economists anticipated last quarter, reducing the risk of falling back into a recession even as deflation intensifies.

Gross domestic product rose at an annual 4.6 percent pace in the three months ended Dec. 31, the Cabinet Office said in Tokyo today, more than the 3.5 percent median estimate of economists surveyed. The GDP deflator, the broadest measure of prices in the economy, fell a record 3 percent.

Exports led the expansion, aided by a global recovery that prompted manufacturers from Panasonic Corp. to Nissan Motor Co. to raise their profit forecasts this month. An increase in consumer spending may not last as government stimulus measures fade and households expect prices to keep falling along with their wages, said economist Hiroshi Miyazaki.

“The benefits from the global recovery are spilling over,” said Miyazaki, chief economist at Shinkin Asset Management Co. in Tokyo. “The economy will keep recovering even if the government does little to fight deflation, but the risks are heightening that growth ahead will be slow.”

The yen traded at 90.15 per dollar at 3:20 p.m. in Tokyo from 90.03 before the report. The currency has gained 5 percent in the past six months, eroding exporters’ earnings. The Nikkei 225 Stock Average fell 0.8 percent, extending this year’s losses to 5.1 percent.

The world’s second-largest economy expanded 1.1 percent from the previous quarter, today’s report showed, more than the 0.9 percent median estimate of economists surveyed.

Revised to Zero

Third-quarter GDP was revised to zero from an annualized 1.3 percent growth, reflecting a change in how the Cabinet Office calculates exports and imports on a seasonally adjusted basis to account for the global trade collapse in 2008.

Overseas shipments increased 5 percent from the previous three months, the report said. Net exports, or shipments minus imports, added 0.5 percentage point to growth.

“Risks for a double-dip recession are receding,” Finance Minister Naoto Kan told reporters in Tokyo today. “We’re starting to see some bright signs emerge from the clouds, but we can’t be complacent.”

The GDP deflator’s year-on-year decline was the biggest since records began in 1955. Without adjusting for price changes, Japan grew an annualized 0.9 percent from the previous quarter.

The Bank of Japan, amid pressure from politicians, stepped up its fight against deflation in December, saying it “does not tolerate” price declines. Governor Masaaki Shirakawa and his colleagues, who will decide policy on Feb. 17-18, will keep the benchmark interest rate at 0.1 percent for all of 2010, according to all 17 economists surveyed by Bloomberg last month.

‘More Pressure’

“It’s likely that the Finance Ministry will put more pressure on the BOJ to implement more accommodative policies, highlighting today’s figures that point to deflation,” said Miyazaki at Shinkin Asset business cards. “That pressure is likely to run the BOJ into a corner.”

Compounding the woes from deflation, in the past month Standard and Poor’s has warned that the nation’s debt rating may be cut and Toyota Motor Corp., the country’s biggest automaker, has recalled 8 million vehicles because of accelerator and brake problems.

Kan said yesterday that the government will next month begin debating whether to overhaul the sales tax amid concerns about the widening deficit.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano said today that the government must do its utmost to avoid another recession. Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, whose Democratic Party of Japan faces an upper-house election in July, received parliament’s approval for a 7.2 trillion yen ($80 billion) stimulus package last month.

Spearheading Revival

Asia spearheaded the export revival, led by China, Japan’s biggest overseas customer, which grew the most since 2007. U.S. demand is also improving after the nation’s GDP expanded the most in six years last quarter. Still, a report last week showed Europe’s economy almost stalled in the period, underscoring the frailty of the world recovery.

Panasonic, the world’s largest maker of plasma televisions, raised its operating profit forecast by 25 percent this month. Flat-panel TV sales rose 48 percent from a year earlier, driven by purchases in regions including China and South America.

Nissan Motor predicted a return to profit this fiscal year, scrapping an earlier loss estimate, citing government incentives that boosted demand for vehicles in China and Japan. The country’s third-largest carmaker expects net income of 35 billion yen in the year ending March 31, compared with an earlier forecast of a 40 billion yen loss.

A separate report today showed industrial production growth in December was revised to 1.9 percent from 2.2 percent.

Consumer Spending

Spending by consumers, which accounts for more than half of the economy, rose 0.7 percent in the fourth quarter, today’s report showed. Business investment climbed 1 percent, the first positive reading in seven quarters.

The gain in capital spending “signals a turning point in the economy toward a sustainable recovery,” said Kyohei Morita, chief economist at Barclays Capital in Tokyo.

Even as exports improve, Japan’s expansion may lose momentum as the effects of stimulus spending at home fade.

“Consumption has been sluggish if you exclude purchases of autos and flat-panel televisions, which have received a direct boost from government stimulus,” said Ryutaro Kono, chief economist at BNP Paribas in Tokyo. “Many households perceive income declines since late 2008 not just as a result of the economy’s growth cycle but as permanent declines.”

Source

Richard A. Anderson, a retired group president for global business services at AT&T Inc., has been elected to the board of directors for Computer Services Inc.

Anderson retired from AT&T in June 2007. He since has served as executive director of the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority. He also sits on several boards, including the board of advisors for Murray State University, Murray, Ky.

In his role with the state of Georgia, Anderson is overseeing the creation of the state’s strategic-transportation plan, according to a news release.

Paducah, Ky.-based Computer Services Inc. (Pink Sheets: CSVI) delivers core banking, payment-processing, Internet, card-services, risk-assessment, fraud-prevention, network-management and regulatory-compliance services to more than 4,600 financial institutions and corporations.

Source

The high-profile squabble that captivated late-night television for weeks comes to a close Friday, when Conan O’Brien makes his final appearance as host of "The Tonight Show."

O’Brien walks away from "Tonight" after just seven months with a severance package said to be worth $45 million, including $12 million for his staff, according to people familiar with the terms.

The payout is roughly equivalent to what NBC would have paid O’Brien for the remaining two years on his contract. Industry analysts say cutting ties with O’Brien was the best option for the struggling network.

"Even though it was hurtful for the business and individuals, it is the right business move," said Steve Farella, chief executive of media and marketing firm TargetCast tcm.

NBC, currently the lowest rated network, has suffered financially amid dwindling ad sales and stiff competition from cable networks. General Electric (GE, Fortune 500), the network’s parent, said Friday that NBC’s profit tumbled 30% in its latest quarter compared to last year.

O’Brien’s departure stems from a dispute over scheduling changes NBC sought to implement after it abruptly decided to cancel "The Jay Leno Show."

NBC launched "Leno" in an effort to save money on prime-time costs by airing content that was cheaper to produce during peak viewing hours.

"NBC did a Hail Mary in prime time," said Bill Caroll, director of programming at Katz Television Group. "They believed that they could change the economics of prime time payday loans guaranteed no fax."

But the show received lackluster ratings during its three month run, and NBC came under intense pressure from local affiliates to replace "Leno" with more popular programming.

"The volume of objections from affiliates drove them to take this step," said Steven Winoker, an analyst who covers NBC’s parent GE for Sanford Bernstein. "The best thing they can do now is put this behind them and move on."

Still, some industry analysts say the "Leno" experiment could have been a success if it had been given more time.

"It may have been a plan that was too far ahead of its time," said Brad Adgate, an analyst at branding firm Horizon Media. "NBC wanted to take a step forward and wound up taking a step back."

NBC is expected to fill the 10 p.m. ET slot vacated by "Leno" by programming perennial favorites such as the "Law and Order" franchise and the newsmagazine "Dateline." The network is also launching a new show starring Jerry Seinfeld called "The Marriage Ref."

"Clearly, they’re hoping to lead from strength in the 10 o’clock time period," Caroll said.

Looking ahead, Katz said Leno should do "reasonably well" when he returns to "Tonight" in March: "He has a core audience and more than a decade of success." 

Source