It was 1999, and television had yet to discover the reality television craze.

However, with Regis Philbin sitting in a chair in front of a computer monitor, the game show was back and it was back with a vengeance with "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire."

ABC loved the ratings so much, then Disney Co. chief executive Michael Eisner started running "Millionaire" three nights a week, generating 90 million viewers. Since "Millionaire" cost only a fraction of what scripted shows cost, the Super Bowl-like numbers were pouring cash into ABC's coffers so quickly that Eisner had to move into Scrooge McDuck's money vault at Disneyland just to keep it all together.

But as quickly as "Millionaire" took over the airwaves, it was dead. ABC thought viewers would adore the Philbin show for years to come, and had slowly given more and more timeslots to the show.

Primetime viewers, however, are very finicky. And you have to keep things fresh. Philbin's deliberate pause before asking a contestant of that was their final answer got old quickly, and the show plummeted in the ratings within a couple years.

By then, ABC had spent so much effort in giving "Millionaire" every spot on its schedule it could find, it didn't really develop any other shows to replace it. And when "Millionaire" finally left the schedule, ABC dropped into an abyss.

Granted, NBC doesn't have so far to fall as we try to learn lessons before it's too late when it comes to Jay Leno. ABC at the time was the most watched network on television. NBC, right now, is probably the least watched, outside of The CW (and they have an excuse).

As a way to save money, and to keep what they feel is a bankable asset on their books, former network chief Ben Silverman gave late-night talk show host Jay Leno his own primetime show that began Monday and quickly found some 18 million viewers.

That's great ... an instant success, right? It showed that all the people who were weary of this were wrong. Right?

Wrong.

Just like how "Millionaire" pulled in record viewers for ABC in the beginning, no one doubted that Leno would get a big opening boost, just like a highly publicized movie does on its opening weekend. Before we pop the corks on the champagne bottles, however, we need to make sure this just isn't the honeymoon.

The "Jay Leno" show isn't on once a week. It's not even on three times a week like "Millionaire" was at its peak. It's on five days a week, and competing against some strong dramas on other networks that might take advantage of a perceived weak spot in NBC's schedule.

And Leno has to do all this through next May. Sure, he did a daily show on "The Tonight Show," but this is different. The 10 p.m. slot doesn't cater to insomniacs that want something funny to help them fall asleep after watching the news. These are people who are looking for strong programming to keep them tuned into networks, instead of going off and reading e-mail or playing a video game, or ::gasp:: reading a book!

I'm interested to see how the Leno experiment works out. But I am sticking to my guns on this one ... I would be shocked if the show made it to mid-season, let alone get a renewal. Granted, "Jay Leno" is cheap to produce, just like "Millionaire" was, but Leno himself is not a minimum wage talent. He's demanding blockbuster money and getting it.

But will it pay off in the end for NBC? Or is this the beginning of the end?