• 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!

The controversy started last week when Letterman attempted to crack a joke about a photo of Palin and her daughter Willow, who attended a Yankees game.  Of the photo, he said that the teen-aged daughter was “knocked up by Alex Rodriguez in the seventh inning.”

Some Dave-watchers were outraged, because Willow is only 14, prompting Letterman to claim that he had been talking about the 18-year-old daughter.  Still, some TV fans were angry, and did not accept this explanation.

Finally, on Monday night (June 15), Dave made a public apology to Palin for “a bad joke … a joke that was beyond flawed,” and Palin accepted his apology.  She released a statement saying that she accepted his apology “on behalf of all young women, like my daughters, who hope men who ‘joke’ about public displays of sexual exploitation of girls will soon evolve.”

As of Tuesday, people were still protesting outside the Letterman studio, but it is this DinnerTopic writer’s opinion that this issue shall soon die down.  The only real casualty, it seems, may be Conan, who probably wishes that all this tv-chatter were about his show, rather than Dave’s.

Read on:

Reuters.com – Palin accepts Letterman apology, protest goes on

NYDailyNews.com – ‘Fire Dave!’: Crowd lines up to protest Letterman’s ‘Late Show’ Palin joke

FoxNews.com – As Protestors Boycott ‘Late Show,’ David Letterman Continues to Make Jokes

Here’s what you need to know regarding the new and departing shows:

• Late Night with Conan O’Brien – last show was 02/20/09
• Late Night with Jimmy Fallon – first show is 03/02/09
• The Tonight Show with Jay Leno – last show is 05/29/09
• The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien – first show is 06/01/09
• The Jay Leno Show – first show scheduled for September 2009

With the already existing shows in place, there will be more shows TALKING about entertainment than actual entertainment.  This is what the talk show schedule will look like in the fall for the networks.  Keep in mind this does not include the various cable talk shows.  Times are usually in Eastern, but I’m putting them in Central.  Why?  It’s my blog and I can do what I want.  Let’s let the east coasters do some math for once!

CBS

• 10:30 pm - Late Show with David Letterman
• 11:30 pm - Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson

NBC

• 9:00 pm - The Jay Leno Show
• 10:30 pm - The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien
• 11:30 pm - Late Night with Jimmy Fallon
• 12:30 pm -Last Call with Carson Daly

ABC

• 11:30 pm -Jimmy Kimmel Live!

To answer your question before you even ask it, yes, it is true that original scripted programming on NBC will virtually cease to exist come 2010 – a Heroes here, a 30 Rock there, and that’s about it.  Perhaps Leno will interview a different star of an ABC sitcom every day, or maybe every talk show host will appear on each other’s talk shows to help fill the time.

He was so bad that rumors are starting to swirl that Phoenix’s new “persona” as this spaced-out hip hop/rap wannabe is all a ruse.  Casey Affleck was filming Phoenix even while heading to the Late Show.  While I am leaning more toward believing it is all an act (why else would a friend let Phoenix in his supposed “condition” go on the shoe), I’m not sure who the joke is on.  For the sake of publicity, the “act” is a great move.  For the sake of humor?  Not so much.  Anyone can act like a fool and then say “hey, I’m not really a fool.”

The other bit of Letterman news is U2′s upcoming weeklong stint with the show.  As quite a coup for the show and a great way for the band to promote their new album (“No Line on the Horizon”), U2 will be performing on the Late Show the entire week of March 2nd.  (Source: Yahoo! News)

Read on:

Yahoo! News – Joaquin’s Letterman appearance is instant classic

Yahoo! News – U2 gets week long gig on David Letterman show