My impression is that they didn’t want to hire Leno back in the first place, but they had already made the contract that let him have his own show. They didn’t want to buy him out at that point, but the affiliates were not going to let them keep Leno’s show at 10:00. So their plan was to give Leno a show at 11:30 and keep him there until his contract was up.
I further think they don’t believe Leno’s popularity will last long enough to make another contract. I’m also not entirely sure they can afford to keep Leno on at the high salary he demands. It wouldn’t surprise me if the real story is that Leno’s agent refused to accept a lower salary and shorter contract. For all Leno’s protestations that he doesn’t care about the money, he sure uses some pretty hardball people to represent him.
I believe it was well-publicized that Jay reached into his own pocket and his own salary to make up for the budget cuts for The Tonight Show to continue to pay salaries for his staff that would otherwise have been fired from his show.
If anyone is NOT in this for the money, I think Leno is the one talk show host who does this because he simply loves doing the show. Sure, he has made a ton of money - but at this point, he is not interested in bigger bucks. I think the guy sincerely likes doing the show and doesn’t really care what they pay him. Other than his extensive car collection, what else does he spend money on? He never travels, never goes to the Hollywood parties, nor hobnob with celebrities on yachts…he even does free gigs at local comedy clubs just to “practice” and work out his material.
Leno has made a point that he never touches the money from the The Tonight Show. He says he lives just on what he makes from touring and other promotions.
If that’s even close to true, then wow. This celebrity net worth site says he’s made $286 million in salary. Large chunks of that have to go to the government and his agent and manager and all the other Hollywood apparatus, but even half that money invested yearly makes their $250 million net worth estimate conservative.
That same site says Letterman is worth $400 million.
I have no dog in this fight. I don’t watch talk shows.
But I’ve always had a feeling that Leno’s “nice guy” persona is a bit faked. Yes, he’s a nice guy personally. But it seems he always makes sure he’s got somebody who isn’t at all nice working for him and doing the things that need to be done against the competition to advance his career.
I don’t get the Internet posters who feel compelled to defend Jay Leno, of all people. Are they just really old and angry that they see a fellow retirement-age individual being forced to finally make way for the younger generation?
I don’t particularly care if Jay Leno is being pushed aside or not.
I still think NBC is taking one heck of a risk with this strategy. One that backfired once already.
Those aren’t mutually exclusive positions to hold. And that seems to be the tenor of the thread. Most posters don’t really care about Leno personally but about what this bodes for NBC and evening television.
As for publicly vs privately “nice guys”, what does it matter? Unless they’re clubbing baby seals in their spare time, people are getting worked up over what boils down to office politicking. I hardly care about that in my own office, and my mind boggles when people spend time caring about it in other offices.
Read “The Late Shift” and “The War For Late Night,” both by Bill Carter. Neither one paints him in a good light and all the people who defend him in the Conan fiasco clearly haven’t read the latter.
Speaking of Conan (again) in the Leno thread, might as well mention his current ratings.
From the Washington Post:
"When Conan premiered on TBS in November of ‘10, more than 4 million tuned in. By the end of that calendar year, it was averaging slightly more than a million viewers and the median age of his audience was about 32 years. TBS suits said they were happy with those stats, and “Conan” could go on forever with them.
But the numbers fell under 1 million — dropping below 800,000 at times, and, from fall of ’11 through end end of March, Conan averaged 960,000 viewers, with a median age of 34.4 years.
To prop up his ratings, TBS bought rerun rights to “The Big Bang Theory” which became his lead-in — at a reported cost of $2 million an episode. Fall of ’12 through March of ’13, he’s averaged 910,000 viewers, but his audience aged up — median age is now 39.7 years, owing most likely to the older-skewing “Big Bang” lead-in."
No, Leno never wanted to retire. Back in 200_whatever, when Conan’s contract was coming up for renewal, he threatened to leave if he didn’t get a solid commitment on the Tonight Show gig. He made the comment that he thought Leno was “ruining the Tonight Show brand”. I wish I had a link. Little did I know back then I would need it, and that was 2 computers ago for me.
NBC made a strategic decision to commit to giving Conan the Tonight Show when Leno’s contract expired. When that happened, Leno was not ready to retire from TV. Rather than risk Leno setting up shop on a competing network in the same time slot, NBC tried to move Leno to prime time and translate his success. It didn’t work. At the same time Conan was not doing well in the Tonight Show slot.
NBC faced expensive decisions all around: keep Conan for a while longer even though his ratings were down, and pay out Leno for the prime time experiment; move Leno to an alternate time slot/show name, possibly back to the post-news slot, and thereby move The Tonight Show out of it’s legacy position; buy out Conan and return Leno to the Tonight Show host. Conan was not thrilled with the idea of moving the Tonight Show (again, the branding issue), and ultimately it was cheaper to buy out Conan than Leno, and Leno swung the ratings on the Tonight Show back to boot.
This time is a similar situation, Leno expressed no desire or intent to retire. He even negotiated an extension (short) to his contract. But ultimately, NBC feels concerned that Kimmel is gaining ground with the younger demographic, and if they tie up the slot with a long term contract for Leno, they won’t have as much leeway if Kimmel does overtake him in the next year or two. There is also the fact that Jay has been making a lot of jokes attacking NBC’s ratings and such, and the rumor is that the NBC execs are less than thrilled with that. Thus, less desire to fight to keep him.
There seems to be much emotion from the other side, the ones intent on deriding Leno.
From my perspective, it seems ill-conceived to let Leno leave before he’s ready to retire and while he’s still winning the time slot. They tried that once and fucked it up. Certainly the situation isn’t the same, but it sure feels similar. It would be one thing if Leno’s ratings were slipping, but the don’t seem to be. Kimmel’s are growing and he’s new in the time slot, so the future is not known, only to be guessed at. NBC is guessing that Fallon will compete better against Kimmel in the time slot, especially with younger viewers.
As mentioned, Lorne Michaels is producer of both shows, so yeah, there kinda is.
The fear is they lock in Leno for another 5 or 10 years, and then Kimmel overtakes him in the next few months to a year. Plus, Leno’s demographic appeal remains older and will only get more so, whereas bringing in a younger host with more internet tie-ins will appeal to a younger group. That’s the thought process, anyway. Trade off a known quantity against an unknown opponent for a somewhat known quantity and solidify the future. Or maybe lose their top spot in both slots. It’s all guesswork.
So your opinion is set regardless of evidence, and when shown evidence to the contrary (Leno voluntarily taking a 50% pay cut to keep staff employed), he’s somehow still a dick.
Leno is a workaholic. He does the show, and also does standup, including weekend shows in Vegas. He’ll tape Friday afternoon, then fly to Vegas and perform that night. I don’t think it’s about money for him, it’s what he does. He plays with cars and does comedy. That’s his life.
I don’t get the internet posters who feel compelled to attack Jay Leno, of all people. Are they just jealous because Leno is better at his job than Letterman and Conan?
And yet this post ends with a dig about Leno being “better at his job,” which is true if you feel his job is bringing in the best ratings and a matter of taste if you think his job is to make you laugh.
I suppose, but aren’t the two correlated? If he makes people laugh, they tune in.
I can see making the case for demographics and share of the audience under 40 years old, but that’s an argument for potential future ratings than current ratings, i.e. people who might laugh in the future vs the ones actually laughing now.
Yes, they are related- although it’s more like ‘if he makes people laugh, they keep watching.’ Stating it as a fact that Leno is better at his job based just on ratings is kind of goofy. It’s not a given that everybody thinks about TV that way.
One factor we’re not really talking about is Seth Myers. While you never know how a person will do as host of a talk show until they actually do it, my guess is that Myers is an inspired choice for “Late Night”. He’s sarcastic and edgy while still being very likeable, which is pretty much what both Letterman and Conan were like when they were young.
If NBC had a chance to land Myers for that gig or risk having him move to another network and do a competing show, then that may have been a factor in the decision.
I also get that Leno is getting up there in years, and if he was demanding a long-term contract that might have been risky. He’s 63 now - can he still pull in a reasonably young audience when he’s pushing 70? Of course, they said that about him the last time, and here we are years later and he’s still pulling them in.
Personally, I like Leno more as a car guy, and I wish he’d go over to Discovery and do a “Jay Leno’s Garage” show. I really enjoy his web episodes, and his car collection and garage are epic.
As for Conan, I used to watch him regularly, but something happened to him after he started on TBS. I don’t know whether he lost key writing staff, or his personality changed with all the shenanigans over the Tonight Show or what, but I just don’t find his show compelling any more. If I watch it I’ll usually mildly enjoy it and he can still be funny, but then I find I have no desire to make sure I watch the next episode. He’s kind of fallen off my radar.
Of all of them, I’d rather watch Craig Fergusen. But I do have hopes for Seth Myers.
I’m surprised by all this talk. I thought everybody just watched “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (or John Oliver)” followed by “The Colbert Report” like I do.
That’s what I do (watch the Daily Show and the Colbert Report) but I watch them the next morning on my DVR. I don’t watch any of the late-night programs on NBC/CBS/ABC/Fox, although some of the Sunday morning programs will highlight any particularly good jokes.
I recognize the contradiction. My last post was directed at Condescending Robot to show how things could be rephrased in the other partisan direction.
Yes, there are two different ways to look at it. If ratings for the network is his job, he’s currently doing that job well. Being entertained is a matter of taste. I enjoy the show. He may not be the funniest man in the world, some of his jokes are rather obvious, but I laugh. I have no problem if someone doesn’t find him funny. i get annoyed when people say he cannot possibly be funny. Ratings indicate that many people find him entertaining - more so than Letterman or Conan, and currently more than Kimmel, though that might change.
Then again, I never cared for Roseanne’s show, and many people watched that. So popularity isn’t everything.
I agree, that wasn’t a serious position on my part.
