CBS And ABC Forcing Primetime Stars To Boycott Leno?

Is it true that CBS and ABC told their primetime stars they aren’t allowed to appear on Jay Leno’s new NBC talk show? If we’re to believe what Leno said during his interview with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, that appears to be the case.

Leno sat down with the star of The New Adventures of Old Christine last night and among the topics of discussion was the fact that there was “some resistance” to Louis-Dreyfus appearing on his show. He implied CBS wasn’t thrilled to have one of their primetime stars visiting a show on another network during primetime. Leno went on to joke that CBS and ABC telling their stars that they can’t do his show must mean he’s doing well. Below is the interview:



As you can see, they ended that segment of the interview with a funny little plug for CBS and Louis-Dreyfus’ series. All the same, I wonder how much truth there is to what Leno said. Is it really that big a deal to CBS that one of their stars visit a talk show on another network? It seems the major issue here is the fact that Leno’s show airs during Primetime, which makes it competition for the other networks in that respect. Still, even without the “Watch CBS” behind-plug (yeah, I almost said “butt” but that took the sentence to a completely different context) and under-the-shoe “Old Christine” plug, her appearance is promoting CBS’ show.