I think you’re being unfairly hard on Conan here. This whole mess is NBCs fault and only NBCs fault.
NBC was under no obligation to sign the deal with Conan they signed 5 years ago. Further, the deal didn’t even guarantee Conan the Tonight Show. Instead it gave NBC a financial out in the event that they wanted someone else to host the Tonight Show.
When the show was transferred from Leno to Conan it was clear that Leno didn’t really want to leave and NBC wasn’t perfectly pleased with the bed that they made. But the thing was, they could could have kept Leno on and just paid Conan his money to scram.
Instead, NBC gave Leno the 10 p.m. slot for two reasons. (1.) they did not want to lose Leno and (2) they thought that if he pulled in rating slighly better than what he was doing with the tonight show, the Jay Leno Show would be a cashcow.
Once NBC announced its intention to move Jay to 10 there was an uproar by the local affiliates. I even recall NBCs Boston affiliate refusing to show Jays show until Jay smoothed things over. The uproar was due to the fact that NBCs ideal ratings for the Jay Leno Show would still not provide local affiliates with the ratings they were used to leading into their local news. This meant that while NBC saw dollar signs in the Jay Leno 10 p.m. experiement, local affiliates would inevitably experience a decrease in revenue for its local news broadcasts.
Due to this, The Jay Leno Show was doomed to failure before it even started.
What I find interesting is that the “story” is that Conan’s Tonight Show stint was a failure. Until this story broke, I didn’t read one story about Conans poor ratings. What I did read was many stories about how the Jay Leno at 10 p.m. was a failure and something was going to have to be done. That’s called spin.
I am proud to say I’ve never watched Jay Leno’s new show, simply because I’m not in the mood to watch a talk show at that time. I’m used to the format of a comedy or drama at that time, and I like it. How could it possibly be successful? Even if Leno’s show received moderately successful ratings, it’s not too hard to imagine people would be ‘talk showed out’ by the time Conan came on.
I’d also like to say that the who Tonight Show franchise was a big deal once… when there were only three stations to watch. Now there is WAY too much other good tv on to tune in to a late night talk show with the intent of watching it from beginning to end. Even Johnny Carson saw that television was changing. Don’t forget, His show used to run for 1 1/2 hours! Even HE used to joke about how the guests at the end of the program were nobodys.
He was unknown in 1993, which was 16 years ago already. By this point he’s proved he can be successful hosting a late night show even if his Tonight Show had not lived up to what the network was hoping.
This sounds like it was a very hard situation for everybody, and while I’ve never cared for Leno I’m sure he didn’t enjoy having his performance and future speculated about every day either. The fuckups here were mostly on the part of NBC: they were afraid of Leno retiring and having the next best option (Conan) go somewhere else, so they created a solution that was not ideal for anyone and then showed no confidence in their decision. Big surprise it didn’t work out!
The statement is a classy one in my opinion. Conan was asked to accept what amounted to a demotion and I can’t believe NBC really thought he was going to take it. I’m not a regular viewer but I wish him the best. It’s true that most people would kill to have his problems, I’m sure this has to sting.
I hope this doesn’t feel like a pile-on, Markxxx, but I also disagree with you. Conan explicitly addressed the fact that Leno’s Tonight Show was given a long time to gel (it took, IIRC, about two years before Leno beat Letterman in ratings, except when a new Tonight Show faced a repeat Letterman), and I think it’s a fair complaint. He thought he’d be given time to find the voice, and make the show his own. NBC is panicking, and treating Conan unfairly.
NBC’s throwing their lot in with Leno here: he gave up the Tonight Show when he didn’t want to but now they are making a move in his favor. Conan’s getting the short end of the stick, so I expect he’ll be the one to leave.
Just because you consent to something in a contract doesn’t mean that you like it, or that you won’t change your mind about it later. If it did, there would be a lot less need for contracts.
That means they’re allowed to start the show as much as half an hour late without paying a penalty. And he probably agreed to this five years ago, not last year.
NBC would have been smart to make an Ed Sullivan type show for Jay on Sunday nights. You might argue that it wouldn’t work and it certainly wouldn’t be the powerhouse that Sullivan’s show was, but everyone clearly saw what a mess this was going to be from miles away.
This was the comment I was referring to earlier. Assuming it’s correct, they can move Conan up 30 minutes without a penalty. Moving Conan to his old time slot would cost NBC $50 million.
I’m sure when he agreed to it, it was the assumption that (a) it was incredibly unlikely to happen, and (b) it would be a bump for a news show or some other unrelated programming. To have Jay return as a talke show/comedy/variety lead-in to him is something I’m sure he never ever envisioned.
That’s all a 30 min Leno show would be.