I’m mostly web surfing at night and don’t watch late night TV much at all anymore, but to the extent I’ve seen them both neither Jay nor Conan, even before the schedule move last year stuck me as particularly compelling entertainers in the new time slots. Their shows were much better suited for their audience and time slots pre move.
I really don’t get NBC being so desperate to hang onto Conan they promise him the Tonight show when Jay was top of the ratings 5 years ago. It just does not make any kind of sense to me, nor does Leno’s rolling over for that demand. He was the king of late night and could have told them to go take a flying leap, but instead he rolls over and agrees to walk away from a show where he is the dominant player.
I can only imagine what Johnny Carson would have said if NBC came to him with a similar demand when he was on top of his game.
Having said this Leno is trying to have it both ways as both the nice guy and the kingpin. Honestly Leno is coming off in this whole thing as a bit of a passive aggressive weasel.