I think there were a lot of talk that it was a bad idea, but nobody really knew for sure. How could they? There was Leno fans, and there were Conan fans. 10pm watchers and 11:30 watchers. To imagine that all of Leno’s fans would move to 10pm and the regular 10pm watchers would disappear, along with Conan fans moving to 11:30 and all of the old 11:30 fans disappearing is a bit of a stretch. This truly was the worst case scenario and I am not surprised that network executives didn’t plan for this contingency.
Definitely. Leno got way more press and publicity than Conan. That was a big mistake, almost like setting Conan up to fail. I want to say that it’s because Jay was doing a “new” show and Conan was simply hosting an existing show but it’s hard to justify what NBC did.
I guess we have to agree to disagree then. His history of being a good guy resonates more with me than one or two instances.
You really have to watch the clip to get what he was saying. He was saying sarcastically, of someone who would stay too long, that this guy wouldn’t want to quit show business. Jay said that he wasn’t going to do that, and like I said, I think 5 years later NBC made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.
Would it have been better for Conan if Jay quit entirely? Probably. But I don’t begrudge Jay for accepting a show since I believe NBC offered it to him without his input.
If I find out at any point that Jay actually angled for a show so he could stay, I will completely change my mind and label him the bad guy, which he would be. But I’m just not seeing it