TV deal reflecting our economy

NBC announced today that in the fall Jay Leno would be on the air at 10PM every weeknight. This strikes me as interesting in two regards; First, Jay comes quite cheaper than the five (or 10 with the summer season) expensive scripted shows that would fill the slot. The downside is the lack of rerun and/or DVD value that series episodes bring. Second, we appear to be running out of imagination as a nation. I’m noticing this in the movie theater as well, with remakes and sequels becoming more and more common. As a country of 300 million plus, do we not have the talent and creativity to launch 15 shows per network per year? In fact, the number would be lower than this as any renewed series is one less new series needed. If programming were good enough to achieve a three year average life, each network would need only 5 new ideas each year. Too bad, we can’t come close to this. The golden age of television appears to be behind us. Indeed, we now have hundreds of channels, but nothing’s on.
Joe