"The Jay Leno Show" debuted in September 2009, three months into O'Brien's "Tonight Show" tenure, performing to significantly lower ratings than the primetime dramas it had replaced on NBC and trailing the competition. NBC had expected the drop, having calculated that lower ratings would be balanced by a talk show's correspondingly lower expense compared to more popular scripted programming. In the 11:35 period, "The Late Show" would largely maintain its lead over "The Tonight Show" in total viewers in early Fall, during which Letterman was receiving tabloid attention due to a blackmail scandal. In addition, "The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien" was in the unusual situation of being a talk show following a talk show hosted by its predecessor on the same network, and the booking war that resulted often left "The Tonight Show" getting second dibs on guests. One publicist reported that the aggression was such that "The Jay Leno Show" had signaled to potential guests that doing O'Brien's program before Leno's would be punished with secondary placement in the line-up.