It's been a long, ugly, and wildly expensive couple weeks at NBC with Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien locked into a late-night death match that - to my point of view - has accomplished nothing but drive one of the network's late night stars away entirely while doing possibly permanent damage to the image of the other. But it's done now, O'Brien's exit deal signed off and in place and I'm curious what - if anything - others think about the whole scenario.
To me, this all comes down to Leno's inability to walk away from the spotlight, the whole 10PM experiment happening only because Leno bailed on his stated retirement date at the 11th hour, after NBC had already shuffled the deck and given chinny's job to forehead-man, who had been waiting patiently in the wings for years. NBC has behaved with a complete lack of class here, shafted a guy who was nothing but a good soldier for them for years - not to mention his entire staff - and all of it precipitated by a guy who just couldn't handle the idea of not being in the spotlight.
To me, this all comes down to Leno's inability to walk away from the spotlight, the whole 10PM experiment happening only because Leno bailed on his stated retirement date at the 11th hour, after NBC had already shuffled the deck and given chinny's job to forehead-man, who had been waiting patiently in the wings for years. NBC has behaved with a complete lack of class here, shafted a guy who was nothing but a good soldier for them for years - not to mention his entire staff - and all of it precipitated by a guy who just couldn't handle the idea of not being in the spotlight.
I'm surprised you bring this up, Todd, but pleased you did.
I very much agree with your assessment and would also add Jeff Zucker has had a heated rivalry with Conan, so he was certainly wanting him to go.
The only one walking out of this with any dignity is Conan. He's handled this situation with intelligence and poise, while sustaining that goofball humor of his. And I think the biggest thing to applaud is the way he has taken care of his staff... class. He may be off the late night airwaves but the man has a bright future ahead of him.
I just needed an excuse to use that photo, really.
Leno's got a big ego and his humor is lame. he's already loaded and all he got to take care of is his stupid car collection.
Best of luck to Conan!
And quoting Adam Sandler from last night's show: "NBC! Stands for Nothing But C***s!"
It's a mad, mad world when someone chooses Leno over Conan. Well, I guess these are the same people who chose to move a talk show hosted by Leno to primetime and take off dramas like Southland. Damn, I was pissed when they cancelled that. Raimi off of Spider-Man and Conan off The Tonight Show in a matter of weeks? Someone up there hates me.
Leno is a punk.
I remember when Dana Carvey was on THE TONIGHT SHOW and was clearly upstaging Leno (without being grandiose about it, it was pretty unintentional and organic...Carvey is just funnier) and Leno blurted out "Stop being funnier than me or I'll kick you off the show!" in a joking-but-not-joking manner.
It sucked the air out of the entire thetaer and his comment was met with a brief but deafening silence.
Leno needs to have a baseball bat taken to him.
This is finally the end of my devotion to NBC. I've been faithfully watching and promoting their shows for years, but this is the last straw.
Here are the facts:
- Jay Leno #1 for 16 years in his time slot
- Conan strong armed Leno out of his job
- Leno asked to leave NBC, NBC wanted to keep him around
- Conan takes over Tonight Show and the ratings TANK (where are all these "I'm with CoCo" people when his show is on... cause they certainly aren't watching him)
- 10pm experiment fails miserably
- Conan refuses offer to keep The Tonight Show but have it moved 30 stupid minutes
- No one forced Conan out. Conan gave NBC the ultimatum that unless they did things HIS way, he would leave. So NBC said "fine".
Don't get me wrong, I MUCH prefer Conan over Leno any day of the week, but there is such a distorted view of reality out there regarding this situation it staggers the mind.
Extra tid bit: Leno himself explains the whole situation here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hWBEaWSRj4
Conan didn't force anyone out. Leno announced his intention to retire YEARS ago at the completion of his then-current contract. When he made that announcement, Conan was told that he would inherit the Tonight Show post when Leno left. And so Conan stuck around and built up his following and waited until the time came. It came, and Leno decided he didn't want to retire after all. By this point Conan was already contractually tied to the 11:30 time slot and The Tonight Show and so the 10PM experiment was born to try and keep them both.
Conan wasn't forced out and I'm certainly not saying he was. Nowhere in anything I've written do I suggest that.
However ...
If I'd played the good soldier for five solid years, waiting without complaint for the job that I had been promised, just to be given that job and then have it yanked away, I'd walk from the company, too. Why would Conan ever want to work for NBC again? They treated him incredibly poorly.
After about half a season the options presented to him were to get shoved out of the Tonight Show time slot - and be the Tonight Show in name only - to make room for the guy he was promised he would replace entirely or go back to his old slot. It's disrespectful to Conan personally and either of those options would have meant screwing Jimmy Fallon - bumping him back half an hour or bouncing him altogether - which Conan wasn't willing to do.
He's walking, no doubt, but given the options he was I'd do exactly the same thing. Beyond this:
A) However much NBC may have lost in ad revenues due to Leno's crap ratings, this is going to cost them more.
B) The core problem, as I understand it, was Leno's ratings more than Conan's (which also weren't great) so the way he takes precedence here is just baffling. I'd be pretty pissed if I got bumped to clear space for a guy who just killed five of the most lucrative timeslots on the network in one fell swoop ...
Comedically speaking, Conan is Scorcese as compared to Leno's Andy Milligan. Choosing Jay over Conan is akin to picking Bush over Gore. Dreadfully unfunny Leno and his vapid studio audience (Arsenio Hall Show remnants) belong on the West Coast where the creative/intellectual bar can climb no higher than curb level. Bring Conan back to New York.
The reason Conan didn't want to move the Tonight Show back was because Fallon would've been bumped back and Daly would have been cancelled. Then theres the fact its only been 7 months. Leno had crap ratings also when he took over. It took him years to get the ratings he had. Even if Leno was a victim also, he didn't do the right thing and just retire. Theres a reason all the other late night hosts and comedians are ragging on Leno.
The way I saw it, Conan was looking to either being bumped out or quit. He created a media shitstorm and got the best of the two options. Kudos to him.
NBC dedicated a huge part of their programming for a show that fell flat, my guess is it's going to take more than a new timeslot to make that thing fly.
In the end the ratings will have the final say.
My guess is that NBC handled this thing so poorly that I seriously doubt Leno will be able to retain an audience to make it worth.
From an audience perspective, I would pick Conan over Leno any day of the week but that's just me. On a business and ethical perspective, I can sympathized why Conan is putting his foot down and sticking it to NBC. In the end, he score himself a sweet deal as he should so everything work out just fine for him and his staff. I'm sure he'll be back once his contract stipulation that will allow him to work at other networks has expired.
For those who are out of the loop on whats going on in this late show debacle, the Taiwan news has a report in actual animated recreation to explain what went down. Its really..er, something. I wish our news coverage were like this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12hlX3iPS-g
NBC has done this before. When Carson retired they promised the show to Letterman and then backed out to give it Leno. They tried to heavy hand Letterman into staying but failed and he moved on.
Now they've done the same thing to O-Brian, only worse. They gave him the show and then they sabotaged the "brand" in favor of a host who claimed to "Retire"!
Unlike Steve Allen and Johnny Carson, who when they announced their retirement, actually did, Leno just can't walk away and enjoy his riches.
Hell, the man could have done comedy club tours at his leisure for years and returned to the talk show circuit as a guest.
IMHO, the industry has good reason to be pissed with him. He has demonstrated an acute lack of class that his predecessors had.
I suspect this public mess will taint his future success on late nite. The Letterman -Tonight Show debacle was largely swept into obscurity because it was behind the scenes. This was very public and a lot harder to hide.
Here's an English dub of the Appledaily (Action news) cgi segment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-y04H5mFUFM
Also, Rufio (from Hook) supports CoCo, so why shouldn't you?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR-g01JX8es
:p
Fact facts:
#1 The Tonight Shows ratings have been decreseing for the last 4-5 years or so.
#2 It was Leno's ten o'clock show, and its pathetic last place ratings that caused all of this trouble, not Conan's
#3 The fact that Leno bombed so terribly at 10 pm slot proves that he isn't the draw that he thinks he is while touting the fact that he was 1# for 16 years, rather he was what people put on to go to bed to. Cause its pretty clear by his ratings that when people are awake and not getting ready to go to bed that he is the last thing anyone wants to watch.
#4 Everyone in the industry knows he's a snake, just ask Letterman.
#5 Conan didn't even get a year to get settled into the Tonight Show. Go take a look at Leno's ratings after he took over from Carson, not so hot, but they gave him the bebnfit of the doubt.
#6 NBC LOST 600 Milllion dollars last year. And has been on a downward sprial for a few years now, due to Zucker. So all this bull about NBC saying they would rather pay off Conan cause they'd make more money with jay in there is bull.
There are some real facts for ya.
I'm pretty sure Conan retained a lot of his core viewership from his old Late Night Show. That audience alone could never compare to Leno's previous ratings at his best, which had been in decline for the last five years of his tenure.
The fact of the matter is that NBC shot itself in the foot by having a three hour block of television featuring three shows of a nearly identical format... with a 30 minute break for news. People can only watch so many "monologue, guest, guest, musical act" shows in a row. It's ludicrous to expect an audience to tune in for that....Hell,that's why they changed Carson Daly's format to whatever it is now... he interviews people in a taco truck I think.
Conan didn't stand a chance of attracting new viewers early on. Nor was he even given an opportunity to build an audience like Leno was.
It's extremely rare for a TV show to be an island of ratings... People usually watch blocks of programming. That's why NBC has that huge comedy block on Thursday nights... I only started watching Community because it came on before Parks & Rec and The Office which I already loved... I only watched Parks & Rec the first time because it came on before The Office.
Going forward, I don't see how Leno is going to recover from this. He's absolutely reviled by Conan fans now, and some of that bad taste has bled through to the mainstream. And what does NBC plan to do in five years when Leno actually does decide to retire?
Conan will land on his feet, so will his staff. He looked after them during the writer's strike, and he'll look after them now. Shitty to see his run on the Tonight Show end this way... But he's better off leaving a company that is so quick to cut him loose and raise Leno as the go-to guy. It maybe good business for NBC, but it sure as hell isn't good PR.
VIVE LA COCO REVOLUTION!
If campea really is John Campea of TMB notoriety, I'm not surprised at all that he thinks this. He's almost always wrong anyway.
There's a reason that so many people in the industry that know Leno personally have turned on him.
While I think Conan is far superior to Leno I see how the money people would rather put their cash on ol big jaw. He's safe entertainment while Conan and Letterman are far more biting and take sides, which is something advertisers try to avoid.
In the end it's all about money, not so much talent. Leno made more money for NBC than Conan so it's only logical for them to try to get him to lay some golden eggs again for them.
And this video must be awfully awkward for Leno these days.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWKwylGBSoI
I hate Jay Leno, he's a piece of s#!t and I hate NBC and will never watch it again, for Fallon, for SNL (yuck) or anything. Can't wait till this eventually blows up in their faces when Jay comes back to a diminished audience who have left to either watch letterman or conan goes to Fox or whereever. They're getting rid of the guy that the whole country is getting worked over and putting back the pariah with bad ratings they canceled twice who no one would ever shed a tear over. Rather than prune Conan to be their new golden goose they did the cowardly thing and put back the old one that's pushing 60 and that today's young audiences find boring. NBC is one dinosaur that's going to find itself dying off soon.
I don't know why I'm commenting because I don't watch any of these talk shows....(besides some of the clips relating to this wonderful debacle)
BUT...
Here's the facts. It's simple.
1. Leno said he'd retire five years ago and gracefully hand over the job to Conan, that he didn't want a repeat of what happened with the Letterman/Tonight Show Late Night talk shows wars.
2. Conan was getting offers to leave FIVE YEARS ago - but NBC kept him there with promise of the TONIGHT SHOW.
3. After waiting five years, Conan moved his staff to LA to take up the reigns of the TONIGHT SHOW.
4. Given all of the above, Leno should have gracefully stepped down. Instead, he's been exposed across the industry as a total weasel. But of course - NBC is to blame. They should've released Leno from his contract and let him go his own way, they should've kept in there with Conan....
....and I can't believe I'm talking about any of this at 7:28 in the morning! What's wrong with me?
Still - I love the intrigue and the drama.
I feel bad for Conan, but mostly found his brand of hyperactive physical humor and his self demeaning statements on his physical appearance to be more annoying than funny. I did prefer a few things that he did on his show. He had better mock interaction with his band members, and the Conando skit was funny. The old "year 2000" skits from his Late Night show were always good for a few laughs.
I think someone else probably hit the nail on the head when they said that people prefer falling asleep to Leno. Most week nights, I'm just looking to watch something calming at night after a stressful day.
I'm not sure what happened behind the scenes, but I always felt that Leno was being forced to retire by the network, and that he didn't really want to go. I've been laughing at how this has blown up for NBC.
I'm with Coco 100%. I found a game where you literally, in the form of Conan, fight Leno to the death. Its pretty fun and hilarious. Check it out: http://bit.ly/axPW9X
Leno could have been the bigger man and bowed out (as Letterman suggested), but instead, he chose to steal back the show like a weasel.
I was mad at the time, but looking back, I am glad that the whole debacle took place. From the day the decision was announced, to the day Conan was thrown on the street; it was the best run of latenight that I have ever seen. Letterman, Kimmel and Conan all were laying molten lava zings on the chin of a man who had it coming for years.
Conan's finale was also the stuff of legend. Hanks talking about his writing days at SNL (with Odenkirk and Smigel), Neil Young givin' er' and an all star band performing Free Bird.
Conan may have had a short run, but he finished with quite the crescendo. The only way it could have been better is if he and Richter killed a dragon on stage.