Leno and Conan situation summary
By this point, the late night saga is over a week old, but many people are starting to take sides in the matter without knowing the facts. People who like Jay Leno seem to want to blame Conan for taking The Tonight Show into a ratings tail spin while Conan O’Brien fans want to blame Leno for trying to weasel back into his old show. From the way-too-many articles I’ve read on the subject, here are the facts. You can form your own opinions.
- In 2004, Leno was asked to give up The Tonight Show five years later so that Conan wouldn’t flee to another network. While Leno wasn’t crazy about it, he agreed to the deal.
- With Leno’s rating still high near the end of his run, the torch had already been passed but NBC attempted to keep Leno as well by offering him the prime time gig, officially preventing him from jumping ship to another network.
- Meanwhile, The Tonight Show‘s ratings took a dive when Conan took over because, regardless of which side you’re on as to who is funnier, it’s hard to argue that Leno is mainstream while Conan’s humor attracts more of a niche audience. The odd thing is that everyone seemed to recognize that except NBC.
- Leno’s primetime show, while cheap to produce, was a ratings failure and drew ire from affiliates who claimed their late local newscasts were suffering in ratings due to the weak lead-in from Leno.
- NBC, desperate to get back some ratings, put an end date to Leno’s primetime show and let rumors get out that they wanted Leno back in his old time slot with Conan’s Tonight Show to air after Leno, pushing NBC’s entire late night programming back at least a half hour. Conan refused the time change, and that’s where it stands now.
- NBC claims that it will have the programming figured out before the Olympics starts in mid-February.
Now for some color beyond just the facts. All three parties (Leno, Conan, and NBC) have been ridiculed for screwing things up, but the truth is that while NBC probably made the bad decision in retiring Leno while still on top, everything afterward was reactive and probably would have been handled in the same way by anyone else. Let’s look at each member of this fiasco.
Leno: He was asked to leave his show and he did. Then NBC wouldn’t let him out of his contract to go elsewhere so they pitched him this experimental prime time gig, which he accepted. Then, they put an end to that and offered to get him back to late night which he agreed to only if Conan would agree to the time change.
Conan: He was offered The Tonight Show (and plenty of money) which he obviously accepted. After uprooting his family and his staff from New York to LA, NBC tried to move the existing franchise later in the night which would certainly spell even worse ratings and make O’Brien the fall guy for the demise of a legendary show. Conan said “no” to the request and now sits in career limbo.
NBC: After the first misstep with Leno, NBC at least tried to rectify the situations quickly. They realized that Leno in primetime was a bust and that Conan on The Tonight Show was not going to be a ratings hog. It’s a business, and everyone is still going to get paid insane amounts of money, so putting the egos aside, NBC is finally trying to put the network in a better place than it stands currently. Mistakes were certainly made, but rather than sit back and watch the mistakes multiply like a bad baseball GM, NBC chose to react quickly. Several months from now, viewers will forget about the feud and won’t care – they’ll go back to watching what they want and NBC is trying to put together a lineup with more of that.
The saddest part of this whole feud is the egos, anger, and hostility among the parties. The monologues last week were humorous at first, but then it became sad when these millionaires continued barking insults at each other across their own shows day after day as if they would have done anything different if standing in the other person’s shoes. Add in Letterman getting his punches in, as if he was infallible, and it’s just a little pathetic.
Soon enough, deals will be complete, buyouts will occur (a buyout for Conan is likely), and the comedians will go back to making fun of the people who deserve it: politicians!
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At first I was feeling very sorry for Conan and then I started feeling sorry for Leno because everyone seemed to be ganging up on him. However, after realizing how much money is about to exchange hands in the upcoming buyout and new “Tonight Show” contract it is very hard to feel sorry for any of these characters. I do have to admit I’m surprised at how much Letterman has voiced his opinion over the matter. Whatever the case, I hope the media covers the trouble in Haiti to the extent it has covered the whole “Tonight Show” debacle.