Conan, Leno and Human Nature
Posted: January 29th, 2010 | Filed under: Pop Culture | 84 Comments »
I really like Conan O’Brien and I did not watch The Tonight Show. No. Not strong enough. How about this: I really like Conan O’Brien — I think he’s smart and funny and quirky — and I almost never watched The Tonight Show.
No, still not strong enough.
Let’s go with this: I would call myself a huge fan of Conan O’Brien and I saw The Tonight Show exactly one time when he hosted it, just once, and the only reason I watched THAT night is because I was actually at the show, doing a story on race car driver Jimmie Johnson, who was a guest. The show was filled with all sorts of references that I did not get because, as mentioned, I had never watched his Tonight Show before. Apparently he was feuding with Hillary Clinton or some New Jersey mayor or both or something. I never watched the show again, so I never saw how it turned out.
I say all this because, like most Americans, I found myself reflexively and firmly on Conan O’Brien’s side in The Tonight Show drama that has taken place the last month or so. I never really bothered to study and analyze the details of the drama — but here was and is the way fuzzy way I understood it:
1. Jay Leno, the old host of The Tonight Show, left (or was pushed out) and publicly bequeathed the show to Conan O’Brien, who had paid his late night hosting dues by hosting Late Night With Conan O’Brien for 17 years.
2. Leno — and I still don’t understand this part — was then given “The Jay Leno Show,” which best I could tell (I only watched this show once too) was just a continuation of The Tonight Show, with the same tired jokes and bits. The only difference was that The Jay Leno Show was on an hour and a half earlier. I know very little about television, but I remain amazed that anyone on planet earth thought this would work.
3. The Jay Leno Show and The Tonight Show both had disastrous ratings. Some people seemed to think that the ill-conceived Leno Show was responsible not only for its own bad ratings, but also for a downturn in NBC’s local news ratings across the country and, by extension, responsible also for much of The Tonight Show’s own ratings problems and also the worst American housing market in decades and the staggering economic struggles of newspapers.
4. NBC determined that he best way for them to fix this mess — or at least lessen the mess — was to reinstate Leno into his old Tonight Show time slot (though cutting his show to only a half hour) and then moving Conan and HIS Tonight Show back a half hour, to a new 12:05 starting time.
5. Conan felt that the time move would destroy the very fabric of The Tonight Show and wrote a letter saying he would quit before he would move.
6. Many, many, many people who, like me, liked Conan but did not watch The Tonight Show backed him and his principled stand and ripped Jay Leno for his willingness to big-foot his way into this apparently coveted 11:35 p.m. time slot.
7. Conan left, and he was given $45 million to share with his staff and hundreds of thousands of letters of support. Leno, meanwhile, was torn apart by many people and competitors and media critics, but he did get The Tonight Show back. He would then do an interview with Oprah in which Oprah scolded him for making a not especially funny extramarital joke about David Letterman, who had spent much of his show tearing apart Leno. Most of us sided with Letterman too because his jokes seemed funnier.
I think that about covers it. You know, I am endlessly fascinated by what creates public opinion. Why do some apologies seem to break through the American psyche while others are rejected into the cheap seats? Why do some people (politicians, celebrities, athletes) seem to be teflon and untouchable (like they used to say about Ronald Reagan) while others seem easy and fun to beat on, like pinatas? If I was smarter and had a better understanding of human psychology, I would write a book about this.
But I’m not smarter and I barely kept up in my 10th grade psychology class* so I can only write this blog post.
*One thing I remember is that in that class the teacher played the Blood, Sweat & Tears song “And When I Die,” and we were supposed to discuss it. I only bring this up because I’m pretty certain that I have not heard that song since that class … and I don’t remember hearing it BEFORE that class either. And I still remember just about every word.
“I’m not scared of dying
and I don’t really care
If it’s peace you find in dying
then let the dying time be near
If it’s peace you find in dying, well then dying time is near
Just bundle up my coffin ‘cause it’s cold way down there
I hear that it’s cold way down there
Yeah, crazy cold way down there.”
Human memory is weird.**
**I also remember a long and bizarre collection of words I learned at camp.
1 Hen
2 Ducks
3 Squawking geese
4 Limerick Oysters
5 Corpulent porpoises
6 Pairs of Donnie Alversos tweezers
7 Thousand angry Macedonians in full battle array.
8 Brass monkeys guarding the ancient, sacred crypts of Egypt
9 Apathetic, sympathetic, diabetic old men on roller skates with the marked pretension for procrastination and sloth.
10 Lyrical, spherical, diabolical denizens of the deeps who hawk and squawk around the quiver of the quo of the quay all at the same time.
Apparently, this was “The Announcers Test” — a test they used to give to people in radio who wanted to become announcers. I have no idea why I still remember this word for word, and it certainly troubles me that over the years I have forgotten so many basic things (like my bank car PIN) but could always pull out this useless collection of syllables.
Here then is my uneducated guess on the Conan-Leno thing. I think it all goes beyond logic, beyond story lines, beyond the silly showbiz of it all — let’s be brutally honest here, two rich guys, bad ratings, one gets $45 million, the other gets a show at 11:35 at night, what in the hell is the commotion about?
I think it’s that people relate better to Conan’s story. Here was somebody who always seemed to be the underdog. He was almost entirely unknown when he was given Late Night — and the first three years of the show were widely viewed to be calamitous. He was a writer more than performer, an edgy comic voice who had worked on The Simpsons and Saturday Night Live. He was the smart and funny guy we knew, the guy who always left us in stitches, the guy we had always told: “Man, you are in the wrong field, YOU should be hosting The Tonight Show.”
Leno, of course, had a very different story. The first time I saw Jay Leno, he was a stand-up comic — and one of the funniest people I had ever seen. I remember he did this bit on how Mr. Potato Head could only have happened in America (“Kimba eat potato”) and I was laughing so hard I could not breathe. From what I have been told, Leno in those days was viewed by many of his comedian peers as a genius, sort of a Charlie Parker of stand-up comedy. That’s significant, I think, because if you did not know that, you would NEVER know that watching Leno’s Tonight Show. There was nothing resembling genius there. It was all safe and pat and ba-dump-bump — like Charlie Parker playing “Girl from Ipanema” nightly at the local Holiday Inn. Maybe that’s what The Tonight Show has to be (after all, remember, the show was No. 1 when Leno hosted). Still, I — and many people I know — could not watch the show without thinking about Leno when he had actually made us laugh. There always seemed something sellout about it.
So, maybe that’s it. Maybe we just like Conan’s story more — the cliche story of the underdog striving and reaching the peak against odds. Maybe we just like Leno’s story less — the cliche story of a star who does not want to leave the stage. Maybe we believe that Leno’s nice guy image is fraudulent and, behind closed doors, he pulled a power-play coup and took the Tonight Show slot away from Conan (which doesn’t seem all that likely since Leno was forced off The Tonight Show in the first place). Maybe we are sick of Leno’s cotton candy Tonight Show and believe that Conan, given enough time, would have made The Tonight Show viable and great again. Maybe we just don’t like seeing someone get a raw deal — even if Conan gets $45 million bucks on the other side.
Or maybe, Leno is just an easier target for our wrath. Like I say — this is my instinct too. Free Conan! Down with Leno! But I don’t really know WHY I feel that way. It seems to me that, with only a small turn, I could just as easily have felt that Conan, with his lousy Tonight Show ratings, was being pretty whiny when bitching and moaning about having his show moved a stinking half hour. It seems to me that I just as easily could have understood that Leno was only getting re-offered the time slot he never wanted really wanted to give up in the first place and the job he did well enough to get the No. 1 rating.
But that’s not how I felt. I don’t know why. I just know that I instinctively jumped into Conan O’Brien’s camp. I laughed when Letterman and Jimmy Kimmel savaged Leno. I agreed when friends said that Conan was getting a raw deal. And I watched the last Conan O’Brien Tonight Show. Well, no, that’s not quite right. I didn’t actually watch the show live. And I didn’t see the whole show … I watched highlights on the Internet the next day. What I saw was funny. Like I say, I really like Conan O’Brien. I hope he gets another show. I don’t know if I will watch it. I hope so.
Loading ...
Joe, here’s a curiously long breakdown of the situation by way of yesterday’s Oprah interview:
http://blogs.kansascity.com/tvbarn/2010/01/oprahjay.html
I don’t watch much if any TV talk shows at that hour anymore, but Leno was a very funny guest on the early Letterman late night show. Kind of edgy even. I guess when he won the Tonight Show battle, he just figured he didn’t have to do anything of note, just sit on the ball to use sports terminology, just keep getting enough ratings to stay in the job until he was 90 or so.
But it’s funny that NBC sought to avoid the controversy they had the last time, and ended up in an even dumber situation.
To be fair, Leno wasn’t really forced out of the Tonight Show. He decided to retire five years ago, which is when all the contracts were signed giving Conan the show. Then, as the date approached, Leno changed his mind about retirement. In order to keep him from going to another network without breaking their contract with Conan, NBC decided to give him a new show in primetime.
In the end, I blame Brett Favre.
I hadn’t thought about that, how the picture might look different if you thought Leno was funny. Then again, I had forgotten that Leno once was funny.
Letterman said it best, when he said: “You don’t stay at NBC, waiting to get your old job back. You leave. That’s how it works in show business.”
Leno, even if he was pushed out, means he should leave. But, then he’s offered the 10 o’clock show, and was fired from that. He should leave. But, he was offered Conan’s dream job back. He should say no (if he wants to stay in the public’s good graces; if he doesn’t care, then take the job back like a scumbag; that’s what makes America great!)
And this is the kicker: Leno, 5 years ago, on his show, said that he did NOT want to go through the Letterman thing again, that he would hand the reigns over to Conan, with no animosity. Again, in America, you are allowed to be a douche-bag.
Douche-bag said this 5 years ago:
“This show is a dynasty. You hold it, and then you hand it off to the next person. So here it is, Conan!”
http://blogs.kansascity.com/tvbarn/2010/01/oprahjay.html
“…Leno was only getting re-offered the time slot he never wanted really wanted to give up in the first place…”
This is the problem. Leno was asked to step down, and he and NBC worked out a deal where Leno would quit in FIVE YEARS. Leno AGREED TO THE DEAL. He could have said no. He could have said that he was number one in the ratings, and that to do this to him was insulting.
But you see, he didn’t – instead he spent the next five years thinking about how he really didn’t want to quit, waited until the last minute, and then sucker-punched Conan by forcing NBC to give him a new show that comes on BEFORE the Tonight Show.
And, of course, all of this happens after Leno pulled similar shenanigans in getting the Tonight Show years ago over Letterman.
Leno has a history of being a weasel. That’s why people don’t like him.
Letterman’s rating boost was helped immensely by his squabble with Palin, and his flings with his staff. Conan’s problem was that he was just funny.
Leno used to make me laugh so hard on Letterman, too. But, I don’t think comedic ability has anything to do with the #teamconan furvor. This excerpt pretty much says why there’s so much support for Conan: “The people rallying for ‘Team Conan’ aren’t rallying for a particular humorous sensibility. They are rallying for what they see as ‘character.’” from @Raaawb: http://tinyurl.com/DidConanFail. Right or wrong, it probably explains Reagan’s “Teflon,” too.
Joe:
You probably know this already (I’m fairly young, so I have no idea what is common knowledge among older people), but the Blood, Sweat & Tears song is actually a cover. Laura Nyro wrote and sung the original (same deal with “Eli’s Coming” and Three Dog Night). That song is one of the rare occurrences where both the original and cover are wonderful. You should go back and listen to them both!
The Daily Show and the Colbert Report are better every single day than Letterman or Conan and certainly Leno.
Conan’s audience was off watching a better show, and Leno’s audience is a bunch of…well I don’t know, I could never figure it out.
Conan has been funny for years. He has a younger demographic that watches on Hulu or NBC.com. Leno, while not funny, has an older demo and those are the people who keep a regular TV schedule and can/will watch every night at 11:30 (10:30 in fly-over country).
I had a discussion with my mom about how she felt when Leno took over for Carson. She said Carson was fine, but Leno was “it.”
She can’t stand Conan, much like her parents hated Leno.
This all seems to me to be a similar thing to TV news and newspapers.
People still watch/read the news, they just do it through the web. Phones, iPods it doesn’t matter.
I watch Conan every day. I watch Jon Stewart every day. Usually I watch them back to back. At 8 a.m.
I hope Conan lands on Fox and goes back to Late Show Conan. No expectations for what the Tonight Show is supposed to be.
Unfortunately, we have seen the last of Triumph, who is property of NBC. I’d love to see the insult dog on Leno. If Jay can’t tame Kimmel, imagine how Triumph would do.
I’d love to see Leno as a comic genius, maybe then I’d watch him. I don’t know why they didn’t just give him a daytime talk show… I mean, none of his jokes are really for an after-he-kids-go-to-bed sort anyway are they?
I think NBC didn’t give Conan a chance to build the Tonight Show audience. Really.
But wait, this wasn’t really about Conan’s ratings as much as it was about the 10 O’clock slot & Leno’s ratings.
That’s why it feels unfair to Conan, from m point of view.
Oh, that and the fact that Leno seems to have somehow stolen the Tonight Show from Letterman years ago in the first place. So, now that’s two steals…
I hope Conan gets an 11:35p show on ABC or FOX or something. That would be classic.
I think the reason why most people backed Conan is because Leno agreed to pass the show onto Conan, but then stayed on NBC with his prime-time show. When the ratings went bad, NBC’s solution was to give Leno his original time slot back and push Conan’s show back a half hour. Regardless of if this was actually Leno’s decision, it appeared that NBC sided with Leno because they gave him his old time-slot back (presumably giving him the Tonight Show back) and asked Conan to move his show back, likely meaning he’d need to change the name of his show.
It’s also a little amusing that Jimmy Fallon and Carson Daly were basically ignored throughout this whole issue. Actually, Daly wasn’t ignored…but he was the butt of jokes that no one knew who he was or that he even had a show.
Believe it or not it was old NBC exec Fred Silverman who thought of the idea for the Jay Leno Show and giving Conan the Tonight Show.
I watched Conan on the Tonight Show a couple of times and instantly knew it was a failure. I also instantly missed Jay but when The Jay Leno show debuted a couple of months later it wasn’t all that either.
NBC is doing the right thing, Conan is/was a disaster and Jay Leno returning to the Tonight Show will probably bring back the ratings.
One NBC exec said you have to have a broad appeal to be a late night ratings leader, man is he right.
I think if Conan had just failed on his own merits, there wouldn’t have been this level of outrage. But what kick-started this situation was “The Jay Leno Show” getting cancelled, and NBC scrambling to move everybody else around as a result. So it seemed like Conan wasn’t getting punished for HIS failure, he was getting punished for JAY’s failure.
On a personal level, I’m in the middle of a layoff (will officially lose my job in March). It’s not that I’m crying over Conan the multimillionaire. But watching Jay Leno make snide little jokes about Conan as Conan was already on his way out the door in an unfair situation, made me really and truly HATE Jay. He not only failed to empathize with the guy losing his job, he pretty much kicked him while he was down. And it makes me sick to think Leno passes himself off as Mr. Blue Collar, Man of the People in spite of all this. By contrast, one of Conan’s earliest statements in the “People of Earth” letter made it clear that he’s well aware his problems pale in comparison to most people’s.
As someone who watched Conan’s Tonight Show just about every night (and watched just about every night of his Late Night work for the last 8-9 years), this whole situation has been quite upsetting. For most of my generation, Conan has been ‘our guy.’ Letterman is respected as the Late Night guru and Leno…well, nobody really watched Leno, but Conan, he was everyone’s choice at 12:35.
In fact, the whole reason that Conan was made host of TTS in the first place was because of this vast young audience that O’Brien would bring to 11:35. NBC, at the time, wanted to bring those younger viewers on to the next generation of TTS. In fact, while Dave was beating Conan in overall ratings, Conan was still winning amongst 18-49 year-olds. So as long as Conan was bringing in the younger viewers that NBC desired, it made no sense to boot him from the show.
In a perfect world, Conan gets an 11:35 show on FOX and we get to see the next generation of the late-night wars when he competes with Craig Ferguson (after Craig eventually takes over from Letterman) and probably the cryogenic head of Jay Leno, still cracking jokes about Monica Lewinsky.
#14, it’s interesting you mention that Fallon and Daly were afterthoughts. One of the main reasons Conan didn’t want to move to 12:05 (besides the fact that it would ruin the Tonight Show’s legacy) was that the timeshift would cause a chain reaction that would also screw over Jimmy Fallon, and Conan didn’t want to see that happen to either Fallon or his old ‘Late Night’ program. Conan (unlike Leno) actually gave a crap about what happened to the guy that followed in his footsteps.
the leno/conan situation reminds me of baseball – the old vet who won’t let go although his time has come and gone, even though he’s a fan fave and the young prospect who BA has been raving about for 5 years who can’t hit the breaking ball or hit for power STILL
i never really thought conan was real too particularly funny and was pretty surprised that NBC thought he would be the right guy to head the tonight show. it was a dumb idea from the getgo.
then again, having the early tonight show with jay leno was a dumb idea from the getgo
shrug
not that i watch much tv at that time of night that isn’t baseball
Joe, thanks for your thoughts as always. They mirror mine to a frightening degree yet again.
Tangotiger; love your baseball work and feel that your posts here are spot on.
My problem with Jay, and, I think, America’s problem with him mirrors that line that W mangled so famously — fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice shame on you. . . did not we see all this before when Carson left? Didn’t NOBODY come to Leno’s defense at that time? Didn’t everybody blame Jay/feel sorry for Dave?
It is the same thing all over again, but, yet again, Jay is looking to have it seem as if his hands are somehow not dirty.
Douchebag? Indeed.
Lisa Gray @ 18…so Leno is the old vet whose time has come and gone…even though he was #1 in the ratings when NBC forced him to step down 5 years ago and was still #1 when he actually stepped down last year?
The problem with Conan, Jay, and even Dave is that none of their shows are funny. They all just do jokes for the older generation. I would rather watch old reruns of Chappelle’s Show or the Colbert Report any day of the week.
I think other people have posted this, but I don’t think Jay was really pushed out since he signed an agreement years ahead to leave. I’m mad that he took all that time and was apperently just hanging around to pounce if Conan didn’t do well. To use a JW metaphor it’d be like a girls ex hanging around waiting for you to not be liked as much as he was and then step back in. Since Conan got 45 mil… I don’t have too much sympathy, although I always like Conan more than Jay
I’ve never been a big late-night television guy. Growing up, most of it was on too late. I remember staying up to watch the last Johnny Carson Tonight Show and knowing it was important because it was past my bedtime. As I got older, most of the time I would just see Leno through the monologue, or Letterman through the Top Ten, and that was it. Later on, I would (and still do) watch other things, whether it’s Adult Swim or Comedy Central reruns or That 70’s Show on FX.
Because of this, I never watched Conan. The parts I did see I often wouldn’t get. However, during all of this I was firmly on his side.
Basically everyone that attempted to look into the future saw the whole arrangement with TJLS and TTS ending in some form of failure. Either Leno would falter in the earlier slot, or Conan wouldn’t be accepted by the traditional TTS audience. NBC managed to bungle everything into a worst-case failure, with both happening while the affiliates around the country started to revolt*. And once that became clear, everyone knew they would bungle the repair.
*Baltimore’s NBC affiliate is one of the most affected by the situation. The 11:00 p.m. news went from a dead heat with the CBS affiliate to losing 50% of their ratings within weeks. NBC could have had someone set off a bomb in the studio and seen a better outcome.
Leno already had the residual character issues from the events surrounding him taking over the show originally, plus everyone saw how NBC bent over backwards to accommodate him this time around. Once the news came out about the ratings for both shows, there wasn’t any doubt what would happen.
I honestly don’t blame him for the situation. Sure he could have stuck to his timeline originally, but NBC didn’t want him to leave. He could have said no when he was offered his old slot back, but I can’t imagine that The Tonight Show wasn’t his own dream job*. I think most people would have taken it back, too.
*That’s something I believe a lot of people are overlooking, too. It isn’t as publicly known and stated as with Conan, but considering what he did to get the job and the general feeling that it is the highest point for a comedian’s career wouldn’t it make sense that The Tonight Show is HIS dream job, too?
This is a long, rambling post, I know. The overall point is that there is a lot going on here both over and under the surface that has led to the current perceptions of everyone involved. There is a lot of blame to go around, even if the majority falls on NBC.
#15: Conan wasn’t a disaster. That’s NBC spin. The ratings were down but DISASTER? Not at all. Given time and a proper lead in he likely could have done much better. Leno himself had mediocre at best ratings when he took over…but given TIME, they went up.
#20: I think Lisa’s baseball comparison continues to apply. Leno was #1 then, but you (and for some reason NBC) seem to assume that means he’ll always be #1 or would always stay #1. The younger crowd was never his strongest group, and he’s lost a lot more of them now. You know, the group that long term will be watching. Also, if Jay Leno is so great, why did his 10PM show fail so badly? It was a poor time and poor idea anyway, but if he’s as popular as some people seem to think he is, shouldn’t he have drawn in more?
Letterman got a boost from things like the Palin stuff, and from his own extramarital affairs which raised interest in his show. Kind of like how Jay’s Tonight Show was not doing well until the Hugh Grant incident attracted attention. Conan needed time to get something like that. The ironic thing is if NBC hadn’t rushed to get Leno back there and everything else played out the same way, Conan would probably have been able to retain at least a portion of the huge rating boost he got from this.
#23: Perhaps it is Leno’s dream job, but he had it for well over a decade and agreed to give it up 5 years ago. He lied and claimed he was retiring (Leno himself admitted it was a lie). To me, it’s not quite the same. If he truly loved that job so much he should have fought for it with NBC instead of agreeing. Otherwise I essentially agree, although I do blame Jay a tiny bit. He could have handled this very differently. NBC is mostly to blame though.
Conan:Seinfeld::Leno:Kenny Bania.
The website “Stuff White People Like” summed up Conan O’Brien’s problem neatly:
O’Brien’s fans will support him loudly and enthusiastically in EVERY way possible, except the one way that would actually do him some good: by watching his show.
Personally, I’m not a big fan of either Leno or Conan O’Brien, and rarely watched “Tonight” during either’s tenure.
1) Leno is funnier than Letterman and O’Brien.
2) When he moved on from the Tonight Show, Leno asked NBC to let him out of his deal so he could go to another network. NBC said no…take the 10 pm slot instead. Leno had the choice of that or being off TV for 2 years so he chose that.
3) NBC then asked Leno to take the first 30 minutes of the Tonight Show. He said OK.
4) If NBC had let him out of his deal last Summer, he would likely be on Fox right now and O’Brien would still have the Tonight Show.
5) I don’t see how anyone other than NBC gets the blame for all of this.
No! Leno is not funny!
It’s like George said on Seinfeld:
“I don’t know, I like stuff you don’t have to think about too much.”
If you agree with that, you probably think Leno is funny.
[...] Joe Posnanski » Blog Archive » Conan, Leno and Human Nature Tags: annual-report, barely-kept, better-understanding, did-not, government-should, inner-circle, not-smarter, psychology-class, rights-violations, rights-watch, supreme-court, turkey, uighurs MYSTAGOGY: Turkey Is Worst Human Rights ViolatorHuman Element Blog – Blog DirectoryCanada: Demand Return of Ex-Child Soldier from Guantanamo | Human …Human Nature vs. War (Raise A Toast to Howard Zinn) | Psychology Todaytrying to get Washington's head around… 'basic human rights'China: Account for Uighur Refugees Forcibly Repatriated to China …Prostitution Arrest Leads To Human-Trafficking Investigation – New …World Report 2010: Abusers Target Human Rights Messengers | Human …Pitch A Perfect (Video) Game, Win A Million Dollars | Hot FootTurkey: Perfect for Vacationing Honeymooners: The Mediterranean is … View the Contact Powered by Video [...]
I find Leno saccharine and unfunny. Conan is very talented and I love some of his work, although I believe he is something of a niche. We’ll find out soon enough whether he has broader appeal when he ends up on FOX in the fall. I suspect he’ll either have to dumb it down or fail.
Leno has really not handled himself in a dignified manner through the years with stories of him hiding in closets during meetings, finagling his way to the host of The Tonight Show when Letterman was the heir apparent, and now the shenanigans with O’Brien. HAVING SAID THAT (LD), I never understood why NBC was in such a hurry to rush him out the door in 2005, basically forcing him agree to cede the show to Conan at a future date despite the fact that he was – and continued to be – number one in the late-night ratings.
I saw an analogy in this thread that Jay was the old veteran who couldn’t hit anymore refusing to give up his roster spot to the talented young player who hadn’t shown he could hit either. It’s inapt; like Leno or not (I don’t) he was still slash-statting 320/410/550. This mess isn’t Leno’s fault, it’s NBCs. They laid the foundation for this mess five years ago and now they’re dealing with the fallout of it as they pay Conan a fortune to walk just to get Leno back where he was to begin with. Even worse for them is that they’ll likely lose yet again because eight months of bad ratings against Letterman will make it tough for Leno to recover the the viewership edge he previously enjoyed. Sure I feel like Conan got a raw deal, but the decision to pull the plug was NBC’s to make, not Leno’s. I feel badly for both of them. And neither of them.
#28 – spot on. Leno is ’safe’ humor that housewives and 50-year-olds can enjoy (no offense to either). Conan is more hip and edgier, and just sort of bizarre and ;out there’, and the older generation (by and large) doesn’t “get” his humor.
“Just why do they call it ovaltine? The can is round…the mug is round…they should call it ROUNDtine!!” probably tittilates Leno fans to no end.
This is NBC we’re talking about. The people who want you to think Saturday Night Live is funny.
The younger set loves Conan. They’ll always remember how great and edgy his show was … when they used to watch it 10 years ago. But as a few folks have already mentioned, they’ve moved on to Stewart and Colbert. Mostly because those shows are actually fun to watch.
For what it’s worth, based on the reaction of my Facebook friends, the smarter people I know – to a person – have all been Conan fans through this. The couple people I know who think Jay Leno is somehow good at something related to television are ones who just aren’t very smart.
The ultimate in small sample size, of course, but I do think Conan’s crowd is typically smarter (even if one of his biggest characters was a masturbating bear). And, without a doubt, they have a better sense of humor.
The whole thing baffles me. I feel like the people of my generation (i’m 27 and from the East Coast) definitely grew up Conan people. Triumph, Masturbating Bear, Year 2000, etc. really spoke to typical teenage humor.
But as an earlier poster mentioned, once we hit college it was all Jon Stewart all the time ESPECIALLY after Bush v. Gore. Yes, the Daily never competed directly with Conan or any other late night show, but one late night show is enough for college students.
I feel like people my age shifted over to Stewart and Colbert a few years ago, but we remember Conan as nostalgia–part of our childhood/adolescence, not only for Late Night, but for his role on The Simpsons, which may be the greatest television show of all time. This may explain why so few of us tuned in at 11:35–it just felt weird to see Conan on that set, and the few times I watched he never seemed comfortable–and it definitely explains why it ruffled so many feathers to see him treated so poorly in favor of Leno, whom NOBODY I know watches. They messed with OUR memories for THIS guy?
At this point though, what do I really care? When I watch late night TV, I now watch Craig Ferguson, who is the funniest host I’ve ever seen. It’s not even close.
You forgot these two:
“The arsonist had oddly shaped feet”
and
“The Human Torch was denied a bank loan”
/Ron Burgundy’d
What is edgy about the insult dog or bits like “my hair is red”? I think he is getting too much credit here.
You want edgy? Check out Jaywalking.
I like Conan AND Roundtine….
I learned a slightly different version of “the Announcer’s Test” as a drinking game back in college — “One red rooster, two black doves…”
Ten, I recall, was: “‘Ten,’ he said, ‘can you swim?’ I said ’swim?’ He said ‘yes.’ I said ‘who?’ He said ‘you.’ I said ‘me?’ He said ‘yes.’ I said ‘no.’”
Or, something like that.
Joe, a 10th grade psychology class, really?
I took shop.
I made a table.
Go Saints!!!
One of the generally unreported subplots in the whole mess is that due to Comcast’s planned buyout of NBC-Universal the NBC affiliate body has vastly more leverage now than they did just six months ago, because the independently owned NBC stations can now create a major headache for regulatory clearance of the deal.
The Leno show has basically performed to NBC’s expectations, but the same affiliate objections that were basically ignored last summer have subsequently become scary to all the people who need to see this deal get approved.
Also mostly unreported is that Conan’s representatives massively screwed him by not getting a time period guarantee in his contract, as Letterman and Leno have. Thus when NBC wanted to move the Tonight Show later than 11:35, Conan had no legal ground to stand on, just strong public opinion in his favor. Conan is repped by Ari Emanuel and Gavin Palone, two guys who are basically like Scott Boras without the charm or strong sense of ethics. It’s hilarious that two guys who never miss a chance to tell the press what tough negotiators they are absolutely screwed their client in this way. They’ve been let off really easy.
Back to the topic of why public opinion has rallied so strongly behind Conan: There has rarely been a media executive as roundly disliked in Hollywood as Jeff Zucker and there has NEVER been a TV show that more people wanted to see fail than the Jay Leno Show. I’m not defending NBC, but I would say that a huge number of influential people were salivating at the chance to hammer Zucker and NBC at any sign that this plan might be failing. NBC never had a realistic chance to tell their side of the story, which would basically be that TV shows get moved all the time, that they had a contractual right to move Conan’s show, and that they were re-committing to scripted programs at 10pm (which is kinda BS but they could have spun that story).
You also can’t overstate the importance of the eloquent statement that Conan put out as all this was unraveling. I think that more than anything rallied the extremely vocal online crowd behind Conan.
Conan is in a category that I call “TV for people who don’t watch TV”. His audience is never going to watch him five nights a week at 11:35, and NBC only reinforced that tendency by offering his best stuff for free online via Hulu. His numbers were disappointing – local news was down -30% coming out of Leno and Conan was down more like -50% – but to call them disastrous is unfair. NBC knew what they were getting, or at least they should have. Soon enough Conan will land in a better place with more realistic expectations.
Sorry for the very long post. This topic is kind of in my wheelhouse.
Conan’s ratings were terrible. He was running third or fourth in the time slot. This was true even in the three months before Leno came on at 10. Conan would not have been cancelled if he was pulling the ratings before the controversy hit and people started watching. Why Leno? Because when he left, he was #1. TV is all about the ratings.
As a writer yourownself, I assume you’d want to give writing credit for “And When I Die” to its composer, the very good and underappreciated, late Laura Nyro.
PS: all these guys make me miss Carson…
Thanks, Joe. Still chortling heartily after having been reminded of “Kimba eat potato.” Think I’ve bruised a rib.
FWIW I think the reason for the outrage is strictly moral. But the reason for the change was strictly business. I like lisa @ 18’s analogy but disagree with her conclusion. It reminds me of statistical analysis of baseball in that the statistics are driving a decision which is unpopular with the fans (ala Red Sox or Oakland A’s). If the vocal opinion of the fans mattered, Conan would have a job. But Conan fans (as noted by astorian @26 pointed out) don’t vote with their wallets; i.e. their remote controls.
For all the people who say Leno isn’t funny there are 3 that watch him because he’s a late night comfort. For all those who claim to LOVE Conan’s brand of humor (myself included) there are 0.3 that actually watch him. Joe himself is one of these people. Conan is the Juan Pierre of late night, he seduces you with his edginess/speed but he can’t get on base/get the viewers.
Late night, like so much of our world, is about the dollars and cents. And the unsentimental pick is Leno.
Late night talk shows are, like soap operas and beauty pageants, hold-overs from a previous era that really only exists anymore in the minds of older Americans. At its height, Carson’s Tonight Show ran for 90 minutes and provided NBC with 20% of its overall revenue. America put the kids to bed, got ready for bed themselves, and then used Carson to ease themselves into sleep. The Tonight Show is like one of those white noise machines or that CD of the ocean surf. That’s why Leno dumbed himself down (and was successful for doing so). But Letterman tapped into a younger generation that wanted something to keep themselves awake, not put them to sleep. And now Stewart and Colbert have pushed it even farther. Late night ratings will continue to fall, regardless of who is behind the desk, because people don’t want or need that format anymore. Soap operas are dying because 1) fewer women stay at home to watch them, and 2) because all shows are now soap operas, so we don’t need them anymore. Late night talk shows are the same. There are a million places where actors can pimp their latest film now.
So Conan gets bad ratings and is replaced by a guy, Leno, who got great ratings in that time slot. Everybody loved Conan but since he got creamed in the ratings apparently they didn’t love him enough to watch him. Everyone hates Leno..but not enough to keep him from getting rated #1 in the Tonight Show time slot. And NBC is supposed to keep paying to keep a show on with Conan that gets creamed in the ratings. Does this describe what is going on?
I never watch any network late night comedy, but like everyone else, I find this interesting.
I think all three are reasonably funny and have pretty good shows.
NBC execs screwed it up badly in terms of the end result, but at the time, they had few good options. They tried to prevent either Leno or Connan going to be a competitor on FOX or ABC. Their effort failed spectacularly, so in hindsight they should have picked their best horse and not tried to keep both.
Seems that Greg sums it up pretty well. I can only add that “edgy” humor seems to involve being amused by the sheer unfunniness of a comedy bit. How else can anyone explain why people seem to consider Leno’s “Headlines” to be stale and unfunny while Conan’s “if they mated” is a sign of comic genius? Perhaps this is why Conan’s fanbase seems to consist largely of people who don’t actually watch his show.
Letterman and Kimmel are on Leno as opposed to Conan because leno is their competition at that hour, not Conan. It is merely self-serving not some mysterious support of the underdog.
None of them are particularly funny though Leno once was far the funniest of the bunch,
Everyone, whether they view leno as evil or conan as a whiny kid, are on the wrong villain. Any ire should be placed 100% on NBC’s management.
“Everything is the network’s fault, except the parts that are Conan’s fault.”
Yep, that pretty much sums up the Leno stance he has portrayed.
It’s pitiful. Leno claims to respect the Tonight Show yet had no problem what so ever when asked to destroy its integrity. (nearly 60 years after starting in the 11:30 slot, the Tonight Show will air tomorrow morning? Come on Leno, you are really okay with this?) Leno long ago stated the Tonight Show was an honor you hold until its passed on, but still refused to let go when his long-determined time had come. Leno claimed he wanted to make the transition as smooth as possible to avoid the disaster that resulted from his taking the spot the first time, then turns around and creates a much bigger debacle by refusing to let go. Why was he so unwilling to keep his pride and just move on?
Leno long ago proved this weakness of character though. After the first time he made a disaster of the situation, Letterman took the high road, moved on and for the most part left Leno alone (he was always taking shots at NBC, but rarely ever said anything about Leno specifically). But over the years, Leno has never passed up the opportunity to take jabs at Letterman. His character issues can also be seen in his stealing of material from his contemporaries, something he seems to think nothing of. Or his refusal to go with the original planned Tonight Show format in the first place, which was the main host for 4 days then a separate Friday host. (The Leno-era Friday night host was to be Rosie O’Donnell, who would be following in the footsteps of Joan Rivers. Some people gawk at that now, but one must remember this was 1992. About the time of A League Of Their Own, and a few years before her own show began even. She was a hot commodity at the time.)
Really, there is good reason Leno is the least respected among his contemporaries.
The ironic part comes in this though. Had he not created the disaster 17 years ago, Letterman would have had the Tonight Show and Leno probably would have been in the Late Show spot. Leno is responsible for the Tonight Show’s biggest competition in the first place – The Late Show. Prior to 1992, no other network had seen a competing show last more then about 4 seasons. Letterman is at 17 and counting. Now, Conan will likely go to another network himself and Leno will be responsible for the second biggest Tonight Show competition (since Kimmel starts 30 minutes later then NBC’s longrunning franchise).
So not only does Leno hold a big portion of the blame for this NBC Trainwreck but he will also be responsible for the shows two biggest competitors for the foreseeable future. (Well, as soon as Conan signs on with Fox that is). Without Leno, the Tonight Show might still stand as the only true American late night iconic franchise. Instead, it is the butt of everyones jokes while two other networks will enjoy what should have been the Tonight Show’s legacy.
I think the old veteran / young prospect analogy is apt, but I’d ramp it down somewhat. As a Reds fan this feels familiar … the milieu here appears to be the ever-popular bumbling small-market ballclub.
Leno is the old veteran who had a good season and a half for some other club when he was 26-27 but has coasted now for about six seasons in paint-by-numbers style with an OPS+ around 80.
Conan is the former first-rounder from five years back whose MLE’s suggest he’s been Leno’s equivalent for two years already and potentially has the ability to be an above average player someday.
Finally, one day, the designate Leno for assignment and call up Conan. They give him 50 some odd plate appearances over two weeks. He starts out something like 12-36 w/ some ISO and decent OBP but after a 2 for 17 stretch, management panics and decides to send him back down.
Whereupon, they call up Leno who had cleared waivers and been outrighted to AAA … surprisingly sullenly for one of baseball’s long-time “good guys”.
Meanwhile, Conan’s out of options and you lose him to a divisional rival.
Leno’s not happy even when he comes back up. Then, your GM further inflames the situation w/ some nonsense about leadership or clutch hitting. Now many fans that didn’t have an issue w/ Leno before have seen through the veneer and know Leno is no longer an MLB regular. Viewers/fans stay away in droves.
To me that describes what has gone on.
One point that really needs to be emphasized in compariing Leno’s ratings to Conan’s is that Leno was competition for Conan. There are plenty of people–Leno fans–who basically turned off their TV when the Leno monologue was over. They didn’t watch their local news, and they certainly didn’t stick around for Conan. In other cases, people only had an appetite for so much topical late night comedy. So the Leno show, by definition, was cannibalizing the audience for Conan. Thus, to compare his ratings to Leno’s before is unfair.
Similarly, to compare his ratings to Leno’s early years–before Kimmel, before Colbert, before a billion cable and internet options–is like comparing MLB’s impact on America in the 60s to today: there are simply too many differences in the culture to take into account for an apples-to-apples comparison.
Conan certainly got off to a slow start, but so what? He debuted in the summer, with reruns as lead-ins and then he had Jay as a lead-in. The story about Leno’s show took all the oxygen out of the room about what was going on with Conan. NBC’s beyond anemic lineup hardly helped publicize the show properly. And the fans of The Biggest Loser were not exactly going to be Conan viewers.
NBC should have just kept its original deal with Leno, keeping him off the air for two years. It’s hard to believe he’s really FOX material–the Simpsons isn’t his lead-in any more than The Biggest Loser is Conan’s. That would have made Conan’s debut the story last summer rather than “Jay is coming back.” To somehow blame Conan for all this–Conan had an absolute right to walk from NBC when the original Tonight Show deal was made five years ago and NBC made its choice–is silly.
@Pat, I wrote this earlier – the thing is Leno isn’t OPSing 80. He’d been beating Letterman for 15 seasons and his ratings hadn’t slipped. It’s ironic that a site hosted by a writer grounded in Sabermetrics and presumably read by others who believe in the same type of empirical data are debating the merits of Leno’s humor versus Conan’s (or Letterman, Kimmel, etc.) when such a thing can’t be quantified.
Maybe it’s true that other comics don’t respect Leno. Perhaps he’s been mailing it in for years. Thing is, none of that matters. The only thing that matters in that business is ratings. Ratings are the Sabermetrics of show business, and Leno had a long track record of being better in that respect than the competition. Maybe at age 59 he was going to hit the wall like Ken Singleton, but there isn’t any evidence to support that conclusion. He was as popular in 2009 as he’d been in 2005, or 2000. I don’t know who these people are that were watching Leno, but they were there and in big numbers. That is a fact, and is simply inarguable.
Again, it’s NBC who bungled the deal here. The blame belongs at the feet of Jeff Zucker. He and Dick Ebersol have done solid work in firmly entrenching NBC in fourth place. I hate sounding like a Leno apologist because I don’t care for his work and happen to really like O’Brien’s, but my opinion is worth nothing, only my viewership, and I didn’t watch the show once it moved from 1235 to 1135. I wasn’t alone. One could argue that Conan’s failure was due in part to the ridiculous decision to try Leno in prime time and that those poor ratings killed local news, which in turned killed Conan, but again Leno had no power over NBC to force them to play him; that decision was made by Zucker. And as one reader pointed out earlier, for the guy who’s supposed to be the biggest and sharpest agent in Hollywood, Ari Emanuel didn’t even negotiate a time slot guarantee for his client O’Brien. That act of negligence (and that’s exactly what it was in a legal sense) allowed NBC to force Conan into a compromised position. Again, not Leno’s fault.
I think there can be no rational understanding of the psychology of 21st century Americans. Except that we have been overentertained consumers for so long that many of us can’t to anything except buy, demand entertainment, get our “ideas” from talk radio, and complain.
This is just a preview to a societal situation.
Boomers ain’t gonna retire to let the Xers take over their spot. Deal with it trophy kids!
@53: Completely dead on.
Here’s how these different multi-millionaires strike me:
Leno = mildly funny
O’Brian = completely not funny
Letterman = mean
I miss Johnny.
@ 53
“for the guy who’s supposed to be the biggest and sharpest agent in Hollywood, Ari Emanuel didn’t even negotiate a time slot guarantee for his client O’Brien.”
Says… ? Only the NBC execs, right? You dont honestly believe it though, do you?
Let’s say that is true. Then let me ask you this, why did NBC give Conan and staff 45 MM? If, like you say, there was no time-slot agreement, then NBC wouldnt have given Conan a single penny for their reneging on a deal. Instead, they would be demanding Conan pay them to leave, as he would be the one breaching the contract he signed.
“Again, it’s NBC who bungled the deal here.”
No one will argue their involvement. However, Leno was also instrument in the NBC decisions. And when NBC execs eventually did drop the egg, Leno was there seconds later saying “let me pick that up for you. Want that carried to your house? Oh it broke, if you like I can help you beat that guy up and take his for you”. If Leno was willing to retire like he said, move onto other means or pitch something logical like maybe a once a week variety show, none of this would have happened.
There is really no way of getting around this. Conan is being punished because he is doing what Leno did when he first took the job, building his audience. It took Jay 3 years to start beating Letterman. Conan was given 20% the time to do the same. But Jay just wont go away, including a willingness to destroy the integrity of a 57 year old show just so he can ?(save some face, and not have to leave the scene off a canceled show? Who knows) NBC has one guy who tanked completely in the 10 spot that was vocal about not going away and another in the 11:35 spot in his first few months of building his audience, during a recession, following the weakest lead-in in the industry.
Anyway, when Jay’s show was mercifully being pulled from the air and Leno was pitched the half-hour 11:30 show, he should have said no right then and there if he had any respect for the Tonight Show’s legacy (as he has continually attempted to have us believe). And people seem to forget, NBC didnt cancel Conan, and wouldnt have attempted to move him if Leno would have just walked away. Leno refused to walk away, so NBC was left few options. NBC, when presented the options, wanted to have their cake and eat it too – both Jay and Conan. Leno was there presenting them a table and offering them forks.
“The only thing that matters in that business is ratings.”
Conan at 11:35 was drawing more audience then Jay at 10.
But now Leno’s audience has moved on, come to the conclusion he just isn’t funny after watching him while in a more alert state at 10 PM, or has turned against him because of his weaselly stance in the whole mess. There is nothing that says Leno will have a strong audience at this point, and he might be in for some major issues as some rather huge stars aligned (vocally) with Conan in this situation – Jay’s guest bookings will be affected. Plus, Conan will most likely be back come September, which will pull heavily from the available 11:30 audience. Where once NBC was sitting with a cornered market, they have now sided with Leno twice and created two gigantic competitors for themselves.
Will Jay be able to thrive? Based off his pitiful ratings at 10 PM, his act itself isn’t enough to draw much of anyone anymore. Add in his previous audience finding alternatives they might not return from, the controversy, more loss of respect in the industry which will affect pull and a new advisory vying for the audience base and well, it doesnt seem a safe bet.
The thing that gets me about this whole ratings mess is that, even with all of the recent technological advances in the world, networks and advertisers still rely on Nielsen ratings to make multi-million dollar decisions. There are only 25,000 Nielsen households in the entire U.S., or 0.02183% of the 114,500,000 total television households.
That’s mind-boggling.
And, as someone else mentioned, the internet (and DVR for that matter) has a profound effect on how the younger generations consume media. To not take that into account is also a grave mistake.
@26 – Astorian; you’ve captured the essence of the argument. When all this started up I thought to myself, “Damn, I kept meaning to watch Conan on the Tonight Show more often”. Although to echo the thoughts of someone else on here, the only times I did watch Conan, he seemed very uncomfortable on the set. What they had in place for the last decade seemed to work. Leno is palatable and popular for his time slot. I don’t know, maybe he gets bigger stars because they get treated better(with kid gloves?) Conan seemed more suited to the second slot, and therefore was able to get more interesting, unique guests at his late night show. I think the monkey wrench was Conan felt stifled and was tired of runner up status. Eventually, Junior feels he knows enough to take the business over from Pop. I’m a Conan fan, but I let him down by not watching him.
Of course, the defining statement of this saga is that even with all this late night drama, I still watched the sniping the next day on the internet.
@ 53 – JoeyO: I have to disagree with you on one point:
“There is nothing that says Leno will have a strong audience at this point, and he might be in for some major issues as some rather huge stars aligned (vocally) with Conan in this situation – Jay’s guest bookings will be affected. ”
Not to beseech the good name of celebrity morals and integrity, but I’m pretty sure their pro Conan stance will last until the exact moment their next movie or TV show comes out.
@JoeyO I totally agree that it isn’t going to be as simple as giving Leno his time slot back and expecting business as usual. Audiences will have had 8 months to try out Letterman or some other 1130 alternative. And as you point out, viewers or A-list guests might be put off by Leno and shun the show when it returns to the air in March.
As for the idea that we can’t really know whether or not O’Brien had a time-slot guarantee, it seems reasonable to infer he did not, for if he did NBC would have had to pay him the entire amount of his contract and let him immediately go to competitor without a noncompete (though as in standard contract law, he would have a duty to mitigate). Also the fact that NBC unilaterally moved O’Brien to a 1205 start time would further back the notion that he had no time-slot guarantee.
There’s no question that Leno has acted weaselly – there’s a long history of him being a weasel. Still, he couldn’t force his way to anything. NBC could have just told him to get lost. They didn’t. They bungled this situation in the worst way possible. They’ve bungled a whole lot of situations in the worst way possible these last five or six years. Zucker is reviled in the industry and regarded as incompetent, as is Ebersol who is responsible for the red ink about to bleed all over the network in Vancouver. It does seem that they’ve allowed the ballplayer to run the team in the case of Leno, and that is NEVER a good idea.
It’ll be interesting to see how it all shakes out. Fall 2010 portends Leno, Letterman and O’Brien going up against each other, and FOX is going to give Conan plenty of time to develop an audience. That’ll be the measure of the damage NBC did themselves. If Conan is a hit and Leno loses share for the reasons outlined above, NBC will look even dumber than they already do, having paid Conan to first leave and then beat the embattled Leno.
The right play was not to promise Conan The Tonight Show in five years. Leno had the top-rated show at that time, and the top-rated show when he left. They took one of the few franchises that consistently generated big revenues for them and . . . well, they pooped on it, to borrow a phrase from one of NBC’s intellectual property assets. Whatever Jay’s conniving and finagling was, a more capable management team would have handled him better, ultimately telling him to get lost if he wouldn’t go quietly as he’d said he would. NBC has no such management team, and so here they are with another mess on their hands, and one not so easily remedied. The next 12-18 months should be awfully entertaining in late-night television – and that’s to say nothing of the shows themselves.
Just to add another nail in Leno’s coffin…millions of Howard Stern Fan’s have hated the guy since he stole Stuttering John from the radio show to be the Tonight Show’s new “Ed McMahon”. He then barely used the guy, and now doesn’t even show him at all. As Stern says, he would never have said no, he just wanted the courtesy of a call.
Jay also steals bits from Howard and has proven to be a ruthless, yet whiny, skunt behind the scenes. He is not the nice guy he wants us to think he is.
This is about ratings, plain and simple. People can bag on Leno all they want, but Leno was king of the late night shows. Conan’s ratings stunk up the joint initially and NBC was too skittish to give him time to build the show up. Plus, they were faced with the fact that if they let Leno go he would soon be competing against them from Fox.
It is clear that NBC was much more afraid of Leno competing against them than Conan.
It seems like the Conan love fest is a generational thing. Most people I know over about 45 or 50 are happy to see Leno coming back to Tonight. The older generation just didn’t ‘get’ Conan, I guess.
Just to add to Spencer’s post @61, NBC can make so much more money with Leno for a full hour at 11:30 that they’re better off paying Conan to go away than fighting a legal battle even if they think they can ultimately win it.
Every network announces their fall schedule in May. NBC wants to be able to get up and say, look, our errors are well-known, but bottom line we now have the right guy (in their view) back where he belongs and we’re ready to sell commercials. They absolutely don’t want to say, well, uh, we’ve got one guy for a half-hour and we’re in litigation with the other guy, who is disgruntled and mailing in his show. This should all be sorted out sometime this season, or maybe not.
The thing I think NBC kinda botched in the settlement is Conan’s non-compete. Apparently it’s for seven months? That’s worth nothing. If Conan signed with another network tomorrow it would take them seven months to build a set, hire a staff, clear the time period, promote the show, and sell some ads. They should’ve locked him out for at least a year.
It’s as if a player came to a team at the end of the season and asked to be let out of his contract and the team said, ok, we’ll do it, but you are forbidden from reporting to another team until February 15th of next year and that’s final!
Leno is probably a better fit, if only because NBC is slowly dying – like most of Jay’s audience. What have they developed in the last 10 years? 30 Rock? That’s about it. They got in on the Office but didn’t really develop that one (and I bet it went right over the heads of most if not all NBC executives). They’re depending on a 20-year-old Law and Order franchise, the Biggest Loser, Sunday Night Football and the Olympics …. that’s not a whole lot.
“it seems reasonable to infer he did not, for if he did NBC would have had to pay him the entire amount of his contract”
Conan was on a contract giving him 12 Million a year. He completed roughly 8 of the 36 months this contract was to run. So… We have the 36 months his contract was to cover, $12 MM cost per year and $36 MM cost over 3 year commitment
Conan was given 32.5 MM, correct? That is 90% of the contract allotment when he had only 78% of the contract left to work. They did pay him the entire amount, plus roughly 4.5 Million extra on top of it.
Then the deal says he cant do a new show until September, roughly 7 months after the disaster. NBC basically agreed to pay him his full salary over the life of the contract plus and extra 4.5 MM which would cover 64% of his salary for those 7 months. If I were Conan, I would have taken it too as it gives me more time to get things in place for that new September show. Now he can take a couple months off before approaching Fox and starting to work towards the new show, which would likely take at least 4 months or more to get on the air anyway.
“Also the fact that NBC unilaterally moved O’Brien to a 1205 start time would further back the notion that he had no time-slot guarantee.”
It would just fall under renegotiating the contract. If they offered to up his salary plus added years to it, they likely felt he would approve. Deals are renegotiated in this manor all the time. But it isn’t normal for a company to buy out 113% of the remaining unless they are the ones breaching the contract. If Conan didn’t have time-slot protection and he was the one who blatantly reneged on the deal when he said he was leaving NBC, then why would NBC pay him anything? NBC didn’t pay Letterman anything when he walked before the end of his Late Show contract.
“The right play was not to promise Conan The Tonight Show in five years. Leno had the top-rated show at that time, and the top-rated show when he left”
I disagree here as well, Over the last 5 years, Jay has lost a ton of his audience. Sure Letterman was losing audience at the same time, and it is mainly because other options became available to people through cable and the internet, but it is none the less alarming. Jay is not the future of the Tonight Show, he had talked about retirement many times both before and after it was in the contract (whether these were serious or not, who knows, but it happened). Passing it to Conan at that time meant they would be setting up the Tonight Show for the next 20 some odd years with a person infinity more likely to draw the younger audience (which ideally would stay with the show and network). Going with Conan was a rebuild for the future move where going with Jay would have been a stay the course and hope for the best until the inevitable comes move.
“Not to beseech the good name of celebrity morals and integrity, but I’m pretty sure their pro Conan stance will last until the exact moment their next movie or TV show comes out.”
Valid point, but with the number of other options out there (almost certainly including Conan a few months from now), it is to be expected that his pull will suffer at least some. It seems pretty freaking unlikely Tom Hanks will be a guest on Leno for instance.
Some, like Chevy, might be semi-forced to promote on Leno because of their connection to NBC. But that isnt a guarantee as other networks will promote shows from eachother through the guests. And Chase did say that he felt Leno should be the one to go so…
If we MUST use sports analogies, I posit that Leno is NOT an old, washed-up former star who selfishly refuses to make way for the up-and-coming star, COnan O’Brien.
I’d say a more apt analogy is is: Leno is Kurt Warner and Conan is Matt Leinart.
Warner was SUPPOSED to be a place-holder at quarterback for the Cardinals. He was SUPPOSED to play just until Leinart, the star in waiting, was ready to take over. Instead, Leinart/O’Brien fell on his face repeatedly, while Leno/Warner, the supposed has-been, kept putting up much better numbers, until the higher-ups started wondering if maybe their star-in-waiting was actually a bust, and they were better off with the older guy.
Circle me David Clayton Thomas.
A number of these comments rip on Leno, and I’m not sure why. Here’s a typical post:
“Leno, even if he was pushed out, means he should leave. But, then he’s offered the 10 o’clock show, and was fired from that. He should leave. But, he was offered Conan’s dream job back. He should say no.”
Who on earth would it benefit for Leno to say no? NBC’s options are (1) Keeping Leno at 10pm (a non-starter for a variety of reasons); (2) cancelling Leno’s show, paying a huge penalty, and risking Leno walking to another network in a couple years, and very likely out-rating The Tonight Show (again, an unattractive choice), or (3) Eating Conan’s contract, reinstalling original dramatic programming at the 10pm hour, reinstalling Leno as host of the Tonight Show, and most likely beating Letterman in the ratings again.
Surely option #3 is the LEAST unattractive of NBC’s options. And yet people are actually arguing that Leno should turn down the Tonight Show spot, banish it to lower ratings than it would have with him, b/c at one point he said publicly, “here it is, Conan”? That’s ridiculous.
I mean, I don’t much care for Leno, and I can’t stand his comedy nowadays, but the mistake here was made years ago by NBC. They’re the “bad guys” here, not Leno.
I think people are making the wrong baseball analogies here. The real analogy is your team has a 38-year-old Rogers Hornsby and a 23-year-old Joe Morgan, and decides to move Hornsby to CF. But he doesn’t have the legs to cover the ground, and Morgan’s not developed his approach at the plate yet, and the team’s losing…
…so what we’ll do is put Hornsby back at 2B and what the heck, we’ll just cut Morgan. Let him go play for Foxinnati.
Really, I don’t fault Leno for reclaiming the gig. I do fault him for being a weasel, most specifically for his all-too-facile “it didn’t seem appropriate” stance on the question of why on earth he didn’t at least discuss this with Conan. And in that respect, one thing does stand clear: while Conan’s motives certainly did carry a great deal of self-service, he’s at least stood up and said out loud “I didn’t want to screw Jimmy Fallon.” My comment to Jay would be, quite simply, “You could at least ACT like you didn’t want to screw Conan rather than trying to smear him.”
Not that it matters to me. I, like most people MY age, will turn on CBS after the late news if we want to watch a late-night talk show, ’cause when we were in college Dave was our buddy. (In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever chosen to watch Leno except during the Olympics when it’s unavoidable.) And I think there were probably a lot of folks whose late-night viewing habits were “Letterman, then Conan”. I have a feeling that until (if) Conan gets back on the air, Dave’s going to absolutely whip Jay’s ass in the time slot. (Having all the guests who are angry with Jay dropping by his studio isn’t going to hurt, either.) Kimmel’s probably going to get a bump too.
I am astounded at the level of misinformation on display here, starting with amol but hardly limited to him/her.
Jay Leno never decided to retire, five years ago or at anytime in the recent past. He never wished to leave the Tonight Show.
However, NBC in its infinite wisdom (or complete lack thereof) wanted to accomplish two things:
Avoid the problems that occurred when Carson retired;
Retain Conan O’Brien at all costs as the heir of the Tonight Show
(As an aside, let me say that O’Brien’s appeal staggers the mind. If he has talent it completely escapes me. He is funny in the way that SNL of the past 10 or 15 years – never remotely funny enough to warrant watching and if there is a single decent sketch you can see it online the next day anyway.)
So, NBC came up with the idea of making this ill-fated, asinine change (why fix what isn’t broken? Why tell someone he is losing his show when it is number one in the ratings – by a large margin – and he has no interest in stopping?). Keeping Leno on the network by doing the same show at 10 PM was an interesting gamble, one that might have even worked out for the network because of the huge cost savings – except for the inevitable fact that shooting for a 1.5 to 2.0 rating for the lead-in to local news is a suicide pact for network affiliates, which forced the affiliate revolt which forced these inevitable and perfectly logical changes.
Leno is a winner at 11:30. Within six months, he will be beating Letterman again, and will continue to beat Letterman and O’Brien as long as he wants to.
And I say that as no fan of Leno’s Tonight Show. I agree with the observation that Leno was once a talented comedian gone soft, to say the least. But here’s the newsflash: That’s what works at 11:35. There are more people interested in watching his white-bread show than Letterman’s acerbic, misanthropic wit, and I’ll guaran-dam-tee there aren’t enough younger people in the world to make O’Brien successful at 11:35, whether its against Letterman or Letterman & Leno. And for everyone ready to anoint O’Brien the new Fox star of late night, keep in mind that Fox affiliates don’t have to run a Fox show after 11 PM. They have successful, higher-rated syndicated shows like Seinfeld or Friends and may not give up the ad revenue from those shows to give the time to Conan.
And that’s what is lost in all of this – on the basis of a few hundred thousand viewers at 12:30 in the morning, NBC decided that O’Brien was some utterly irreplaceable star.
They were wrong.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by JPosnanski, Jason Woodmansee, royalsfeed, Manly Dad, Pow Wow Comedy Jam and others. Pow Wow Comedy Jam said: Joe Posnanski » Blog Archive » Conan, Leno and Human Nature http://bit.ly/dyKBrf [...]
Joe,
Why are you wasting your time and my eyes on this bullshit?
You write a nice blog. I enjoy it. I respect your view of baseball.
I need to read about two whining prima donna multimillionaires in Hollywood about as much as you need a third tit.
Ditch this crap!
Those-who-ignore-history-are-doomed-to-repeat-it & quirky-memory dept.:
Jack Paar, Carson’s predecessor on the tonight Show, tried moving to prime time (10:00 on Friday nights) in the early 60s. Prime time didn’t work for him, either. One night in the summer of 1963, though, he ran a tape of the Beatles playing at the Cavern, as a curiosity. First time I saw them.
I loved reading all the posts of culture, comedy and TV critics who cleverly present “compelling” arguments and analogys……all of which miss the basic mark that drove the decision in the first place. (other than ratings and money, that is) .
The history and ratings of the “brand” that is The Tonight Show are all tied to one incovenient, obvious truth.: viewership has always been comprised, dominantly, of those who are older and have no follow up expectation. Late Night and TTS have never captured the same demographic.
The TS brand was galvanized and socially ingrained by Carson……no one understood what he had inherited better than Leno…..or understood it less than O’Brien.
The Tonight Show has always been predicated on a rather boring, stodgy notion of political neutrality, “safe”, rather wholesome humor and guests who are reflective of “mainstream” America.
Letterman’s far sharper “rude” and inconsiderate edge has always been both his downfall and his strength. His guests and his audience have, for years, been becoming more and more exclusive, progressive and intolerant of those who socially or politically disagree with the arrogant ideology that he presents continuously.
O’Brien is viewed by the traditional TTS viewer as a silly, rather infantile, clever and witty “kid” who has chosen to remain a clever, witty kid rather than play to the audience of tradition. TTS and Conan fans are HUGELY different.
The harsh truth is that Conan’s fans are not tonight show viewers…..never have been. O’Brien’s 7 months have been marked by his benignly ignoring a rich traditional TTS following……and a desire to change that stodgy audience.
It’s business, baby…..and Leno has always understood that. O’Brien has not.
“I need to read about two whining prima donna multimillionaires in Hollywood about as much as you need a third tit.”
Then don’t read it. Jesus, talk about prima donna…
Anyone who can introduce Triumph, the masturbating bear and Nascar driving Jesus to TV at anytime of the day gets my vote, I’m with Coco
I assume Mark’s concern is that Conan and Jay are from Hollywood, because we aren’t left with too much to discuss about baseball if we remove the whining prima donna multimillionaires.
Joe, I love reading your blogs, but haven’t for a while.
Glad to see your take on Leno/O’Brien.
I’m a long-time late night TV junkie. Carson was king. Letterman’s Late NBC show was brilliant…Chris Elliot at times took the show through the stratosphere. I didn’t care much for Leno at The Tonight Show, especially compared to Conan’s Late Night Show. Conan’s show at the late time slot was VERY funny.
Weird thing is, since Conan took over The Tonight Show, Conan’s show felt different. He seemed to be forcing his humor and seemed to avoid the subtle and drier humor that dominated on his Late Night gig. Letterman’s show, to me, is annoying as heck to watch. He just seems grumpy and cynical all the time and his show seems WAY more political than it’s ever been.
I “get” that Leno is more comforting for most late night TV watchers. His bits aren’t “genius”, but they generally are fun, simple entertainment.
Conan most likely will get another show, and it will be interesting to see how it all shakes out. I think Jay has gotten WAY unfairly bashed, but I think he’s handled it all pretty classy.
Right on, completely agree with everything you said!
But I watched both Leno and Conan’s shows and without a doubt Leno is just embarrassing himself while he is still hosting at 10. He looks angry and pissy all the time
I bet if you could set up a system next fall to track the ratings of Leno, Letterman, and Conan versus the number of people using that time slot to make their way through every episode of Arrested Development for the 4th time that Arrested Development would win in a landslide.
Seriously, having a debate on the merits of Leno vs Letterman vs Conan is like discussing whether Guillen, Betancourt, or Kendall will make the biggest contribution to the Royals next year. Could any of those 6 people suck any more at their jobs?
I think Leno handing over the reins to Conan five years ago stuck in your memory and that’s why you rooted for Conan.
This is an enormously complicated situation (for network television). A big part of the problem is that NBC was already running fourth in the prime time ratings, so it wasn’t as though The Jay Leno Show was replacing a bunch of top 20 shows, or even shows that were going to be renewed. Another problem is that five years ago, Fox purportedly was willing to give Conan a late show. Well, look at Fox. They run two hours of prime time, then an hour of local news. Conan at 11:00 p.m. would have had a half hour jump on the other late night shows, and might have done real damage since he would have been a news alternative. That was a scary thought to NBC.
So the deal five years ago was to keep Conan away from Fox. In exchange for five more years in the minor leagues, Conan would then be promoted. An apt comparison to Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers can be drawn. Was Favre really washed up when he left the Packers? Obviously not. But was Rodgers not deserving of a starting shot? Obviously so. So NBC was being greedy, trying not to let a highly valuable guy they had under contract go to the competition. Unlike the NFL, there’s no way to trade a contract and get some value in exchange in television.
Then there’s the fact that Conan draws more desirable viewers, younger viewers who are more likely to be influence by advertising. Leno has more viewers, but they tend to be less desirable.
I don’t think Leno did anything wrong. He was #1 in late night ratings, still doing what he loved. The man seems to work about 350 days a year, and he’s got gobs of money. Clearly he was just trying to keep his dream job. Why is that wrong?
Conan, on the other hand, basically said, “I gave up five years of my life being a team player, and now you’re telling me that that wasn’t enough” when they wanted him to move to midnight. He pulled a Jay Cutler (although IMO with far more justification) and NBC felt they had to let him go. The $45M? I bet some of it was to stop Conan from going somewhere else immediately and having all his audience follow him. By September, maybe viewing habits will have reformed. And maybe some of it was to earn some Conan goodwill, so that he doesn’t nightly rip NBC wherever he lands. And perhaps there were things in that contract that NBC really didn’t want to see the light of day.
I’m a night person, always have been, and I love late night television. I thought Steve Allen was great. I very much enjoyed Johnny Carson. I sometimes watch Letterman, usually on clips on the internet. I think Leno is funnier than Letterman, but Letterman is a better interviewer, more willing to ask tough questions or get surprising admissions, and I don’t think either is funny enough anymore to make me watch them regularly. I probably watched more Conan than the other two combined, but still not much.
I watch The Daily Show every night, live. Every other show I watch I tape to fast forward through the commercials. Jon Stewart is the best late night interviewer around, the least reverent, the most likely to catch somebody in a major blunder or lie. He’s also the most likely to make me laugh, at him or with him. The week just finished was one of the best other than in the weeks leading up to major elections.
If The Daily Show were off the air, I’d probably find more time for Conan or Letterman. The only show that compared was “Politically Incorrect” with Bill Maher. What a travesty that he lost his show for admitting that it might take courage to be a suicide bomber, something that seems patently obvious. The drone bombs we use, with no risk to the controller, seems far less courageous. But of course it was the wrong time to be in any way suggestive that the enemy might have courage. If only the folks running things had realized that we were fighting people willing to die for their beliefs, we might be a lot better off.
[...] When the ratings went bad, NBC’s solution was to give Leno his original time slot back and push Conan’s show back a half hour. Regardless of if this was actually Leno’s decision, it appeared that NBC sided with Leno because they gave …read more [...]