For Jay Leno, NBC isn't getting top ad rates

The gamble by General Electric (GE) to reshape primetime will about to play out on Monday, when Jay Leno takes over NBC's nightly 10 p.m. slot. Can The Jay Leno Show attract an audience to rival competing dramas? And, perhaps more importantly, will Leno draw top ad dollars to the Peacock Network?

The ratings won't be known until next week. But the ad bookings are coming in at modest rates -- only about half of what competing networks' dramas command, according to The Wall Street Journal. Yet NBC insists it can still turn a profit on Leno, whose production costs are far lower than those of a scripted drama.