i was trying to be snarky with the ratings thing. They attributed the whole debacle for the lack of ratings from Conan and Leno’s primetime show, if ratings mattered so much why not milk the ratings as much as you possibly can.
Would you provide a stage and pay someone to fling poo at you? Conan is officially the red haired stepchild of NBC.
And I gave you a serious answer: it wouldn’t work. The ratings would decrease once the situation was kind of resolved and maybe pick up again before the shows went off the air, and meanwhile NBC would keep getting trashed in the news and on the other talk shows. And even if Conan and Leno’s ratings were bumped slightly, it make not make their affiliates happy.
What exactly will happen come Monday? Will Jay’s show be over too? What’s gonna air in the Tonight Show spot. I’m assuming Jay won’t take over immediately.
i’m pretty sure Leno will still be on at 10 until he gets this revamped tonight show set. They don’t have shows to take the place of 10pm timeslot for this coming monday. Unless they go with jay leno show at 1130pm and put some sort of reruns at 10pm.
Leno could keep Conan’s set. It might be a little strange at first, but I’ll bet the network will want to avoid rebuilding a set they just built (and a very expensive one at that), and this way they could get Leno back on the air immediately at 11:35 and try to keep the ratings momentum going that’s built over the last couple of weeks.
But to be honest, I don’t really know if the viewers would just find it crass for Jay to start using Conan’s set, so maybe they’ll play it safe and strike it and build a new one. If they do that, it’s going to be hard to get Jay back on the air even immediately after the Olympics. These things can take several months.
Come to think of it, that could be the main reason for getting Conan off the air now - they have to strike the set immediately to have a shot at building a new one and having it ready when the Olympics end.
It had been previously planned that Conan would go on vacation for the duration of the Olympics and that Tonight Show reruns would air before all of this had hit the fan. Friday was going to be his last show anyway, but only for a couple of weeks originally.
Its a couple of curtains, a desk and some chairs. The backdrop may cost something but They could redo it in a day. It’s not like they have to chisel anything out of Italian marble. It’s all paint and scrub wood.
So since it’s obvious Jay is moving to 11:30…is he the new (old) host of the Tonight Show? Or is it the Jay Leno Show…at 11:30!
(also…LOVE Conan for fighting for his crew…this is something I would expect from someone like him)
Well, yes, and technically the Beatles weren’t baby boomers. The point is their audience was.
I perceive Leno’s *audience *is baby boomers, and Conan’s is post-baby boomers.
I was just being bitchy anyway - when there’s only one option - like, who’s going to be the Tonight Show host - tyranny of the majority is the lesser evil. Besides, salinqmind has it right - us youngsters what with our internet TeeVee and our iThis and iThat can get comedy a hundred different ways. But jeez, you guys aren’t aging gracefully - move on! Let go of your classic rock stations and your Tonight Show and your jobs that we need and your think-Democrat-vote-Republican politics. We finally kicked you out of The Gap when the opened Coldwater Creek, but there’s dignity in *knowing *when it’s your time to step aside.
Did anyone catch Letterman last night?
If Letterman and Leno were ever friends, they’re not anymore. Letterman commented about Leno’s “state of the network” address. He said Leno told people “not to blame Conan” for the mess. Letterman pointed out that nobody is blaming Conan. He said it a few times.
Letterman then said that in that “address”, Leno commented about Conan’s agents and representatives (who could share some blame) and said that he (Leno) said he didn’t have agents and representatives. Which I took to mean that Letterman was further pointing out that it’s all on Leno, by Leno’s own words.
Letterman can’t be happy, he probably thought he had a chance to be #1 in his time slot vs. Conan. Now it looks like he’ll be back to #2 for a while longer.
Lettermen and Leno haven’t been friends since at least as long as Leno’s had the Tonight Show. Letterman has been incredibly bitter about losing the Tonight Show and being behind Leno in the ratings for his entire time at CBS. Anyone who has watched Dave over the years could see he wears those feelings on his sleeve. He’s taken many of shots at Leno in the past.
I believe he is getting the Tonight Show back.
Letterman is going to learn the meaning of the word bitter when his inevitable divorce surfaces.
Actually, Letterman was first in the ratings for Leno’s first year or two. It was just around the time that Letterman had his disastrous Oscar hosting gig (and Leno had enough time to retool and refine his presentation) that Jay went to #1.
I don’t know if that’s such a sure thing anymore–of course Jay has his diehard fans, but I can easily see a scenario where the whole thing has had such a huge hit on his (and NBC’s) reputation that his ratings may never quite get back to where they were when he left.
Yeah, I sure as hell know I’m never going to watch Jay Leno ever again. Not that I ever really watched him when he was up against Letterman anyway, but now I have a legit reason (aside from the “he’s not funny” reason which pre-existed) to never turn my TV to NBC at 11:30.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who is fed up with the NBC @ 11:30 thing and won’t be back.
The main reason folks are pissed at Jay is that when NBC came to him and said what do you think about going back to 11:30 he should have said, “No way, that the Tonight Show’s slot and that’s Conan’s job. Give im a chance like you gave me.”
But his ego or something just wouldn’t let him do that.
Yeah, but if you weren’t a Leno viewer to begin with, how is he going to be hurt if you don’t watch him in the future? If the controversy isn’t hurting his 10pm numbers now, it’s hard to see how it will hurt his 11:30 numbers a month from now.
Why do you assume NBC wanted Conan to stay at 11:35 if Leno said no? Contrary to some people here, Leno does not run NBC, he can’t force them to keep Conan if he left.