Here’s the story:
So the sordid saga ends. Does anyone care? Post your thoughts here after the show.
Well, I guess no one cared after all.
Well, I guess that ends the short lived experiment.
Throughout this whole fiasco that was the one thing I never understood.
Everyone went into this thing knowing they were leaving behind the #1 shows for 11:30 & 12:30 and trying something completely different yet no one asked “So, what’s the back-up plan if this thing doesn’t work?”
Really?
No one ran through the scenarios?
-Conan’s show does great, Leno’s show does great, everyone’s happy.
-Conan’s show loses ratings, Leno’s show does great, what then?
-Conan’s show does great, Leno’s show is a failure, what then?
-Conan’s show loses ratings, Leno’s show is a failure, what then?
I just can’t believe Conan’s and Jay’s people went into this so blindly without ever bothering to ask what kind of fall back plans there were.
NBC bares a lot of blame. They did little to promote Jays prime time show.Most nights he didn’t have interesting guests. They should have devoted at least one night a week towards music. Made it more of a variety show.
Heck, NBC is still acting stupid. Why not send Jay to the Winter Olympics? He could improvise comedy and do some interviews. Remember Dave Lettermans mom at the Winter Olympics 15 years ago? That was a huge ratings boast for CBS.
The other networks tried to get their stars not to go on Leno at 10 since he was competing in prime time. 1 example: Julia Louis-Dreyfus went on the show and said CBS asked her not to show up but she didn’t care what they said.
I give them credit for trying something new. Most of the time, you hear complaints about copy-cat programming and nobody ever taking a risk on some innovative concept. Well, here is someone taking a chance. The fact that it didn’t work doesn’t take away from that…TRM
Except that it wasn’t really an innovative concept at all. It was the same old tired format an hour and a half earlier.
NBC did take a chance on it, sure, but I wouldn’t go so far as to call it an innovation of any kind.