^ It is well documented that NBC came -extremely- close to yanking Leno in his early days as host of The Tonight Show. If they'd had somebody waiting in the wings who was a proven ratings success, as they did in this case, they would have yanked him for sure. Networks do not want shows that "take time to develop an audience." They want instant ratings success.
O'Brien out, Leno back in?
- Thread starter Professor Zoom
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Emphasis mine.
And that statement is sort of why NBC is trailing in the ratings scheme of things.
Which is why Seinfeld and 24 were both cancelled after their initial episode order.
It's true that Networks have become more and more short-sighted in recent years, giving new programs less and less time to find their feet before cancellation. Which is why they were so swift to cancel The Jay Leno Show. He was terribly underperforming compared to programs in the same time slot the season before, and this was negatively affecting the ratings of local news programs, and, in turn, The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien.
Leno tried that line "Don't blame Conan."
Sure, his ratings were low...paying Conan off was 30 million, wasn't Leno's supposed to be 80?
Letterman did also. After Jay had been in the show for a while but wasn't pulling the ratings they wanted him to, Letterman was weighing his options. NBC offered him the Tonight Show. He declined, in part because he didn't want to screw Jay the way he felt he'd been screwed.
Conan got into a hissy-fit about moving the show ahead half a fucking hour. Oh, woe is him.
So, yeah, the classy thing, the RIGHT thing, for Jay to have done would have been tell NBC to go screw, not screw over Conan's show, and if they didn't like it, they could have paid him his $80 million. To have stood in solidarity with Conan. NBC would have been forced to come up with a different plan. He didn't. THAT is why he's a scumbag, not because he forced Conan out, that was NBC, but because he let it happen instead of fighting it. Letterman did the right thing 17 years ago. Conan did the right thing. Jay didn't.
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Don't kid yourself. Leno is in it for Leno. The staff answer was a bunch of bullshit. Conan actually paid his staff during the writer's strike, without provocation of any kind. Leno had to be goaded into it. Conan, as of now, is paying his entire crew of stagehands 6 weeks of severance, out of his own pocket.
Leno's contract had an even bigger pay-out in it, so if Leno had refused to move back to 23:35 then Leno's staff would have been in a better financial position than Conan's are in now.
You are assuming that Leno would have held out for compensation plans for his people, or use his own to pay for those who didn't get one.
Leno's contract had a big payout for him. It did not, as far as we know, have any provision for a payout for his staff. Conan was able to negotiate a severance for his staff because NBC was asking him to walk away under mutual agreement, which gave him some leverage. If Leno had refused the move and insisted NBC honor its obligations for breaching the contract, there's no way in hell they would have also negotiated a payout for his staff.
^ So you're saying that if Leno had been the one dropped and he was the one receiving a payout rumoured to be in excess of $45m (and I've seen some claim it was as much as $150m), he wouldn't have used a few million of that fortune to pay for his staff's well-being? If that's the case then I have even less respect for the man. 
I don't think that's always the case. You can't say The Office was doing all that well in the ratings when it first started out. And NBC also brought Chuck back despite less than stellar ratings.
In this case, I think there were a lot of other factors. Jay Leno was a constant embarrassment to the network in primetime, the 10 PM shows on CBS and ABC were getting record ratings because of Jay, and a lot of the NBC affiliates were losing money on their 11 PM newscasts. I really don't think NBC had the option of waiting three years for either Jay or Conan to do better in their time slots.
No, I don't know what he would have done. But his staff would have been in a less desirable position than Conan's staff, who were able to get a payout from the network itself.^ So you're saying that if Leno had been the one dropped and he was the one receiving a payout rumoured to be in excess of $45m (and I've seen some claim it was as much as $150m), he wouldn't have used a few million of that fortune to pay for his staff's well-being? If that's the case then I have even less respect for the man.
In any event, continuing to have a regular source of employment would seem to be rather preferable to receiving a one-time severance payout, so regardless of whether or not you believe Leno was motivated by concern for his staff, his actions did lead to them being better off than they would have been had he walked.
While we're talking about TV show crews caught in the cross-fire, perhaps it should also be said that a lot of people were put out of work when Leno agreed to do a 10 pm show every night of the week. He admitted as much in his Oprah interview, and that it never occurred to him that his show would cause the loss of so many jobs.
Not that that part is necessarily his problem, but rather NBC's.
Not that that part is necessarily his problem, but rather NBC's.
^ Quite true. I don't really expect the network to make programming decisions based on how many staff will be employed, of course. I mean, what's the number of staff you employ for an hour time period when you do a news show vs. two sitcoms vs. an hour drama vs. a reality show, etc.? But it is interesting that Leno had already gotten something of a bad rap for putting the makers of other shows out of work.
Not to break up the conversation, but I tried out some Letterman.
Although I like him well enough (and he is head, tails and tits above Jay Leno) I find he spends too much of the show laughing. Just laughing. At himself, at others, at the band, at the graphics on the screen, at his cure cards... .etc.
Is it comedy if the comedian is just sitting and laughing? It's great that he gets a kick out of things, but there doesn't seem to be enough content.
Although I like him well enough (and he is head, tails and tits above Jay Leno) I find he spends too much of the show laughing. Just laughing. At himself, at others, at the band, at the graphics on the screen, at his cure cards... .etc.
Is it comedy if the comedian is just sitting and laughing? It's great that he gets a kick out of things, but there doesn't seem to be enough content.
I never got to see Letterman during his Late Night years, but that's always been part of his schtick on Late Show. I loved it back in the day, but over the years it's become a bit grating. They did a really good job of parodying it on an SNL sketch back in 1997 with Norm MacDonald playing Letterman.
My problem with Letterman now is that he's become really stiff without much charisma or energy. O'Brien and Ferguson are extremely lively and personable, but Letterman sometimes appears very sluggish.
I know a lot of people still appreciate his deadpan humor, and I do too, and he can be pretty sharp sometimes (and how he nailed, ahem, Paris Hilton) but most of the time he looks like he's going on a rambling tirade.
Either way, I really enjoyed his perspective on this whole 'late night' debacle especially since he probably knew a thing or two about how O'Brien felt in all of this. So, in that respect, his commentary was precise, but I just feel like in general he's been showing his age.
I know a lot of people still appreciate his deadpan humor, and I do too, and he can be pretty sharp sometimes (and how he nailed, ahem, Paris Hilton) but most of the time he looks like he's going on a rambling tirade.
Either way, I really enjoyed his perspective on this whole 'late night' debacle especially since he probably knew a thing or two about how O'Brien felt in all of this. So, in that respect, his commentary was precise, but I just feel like in general he's been showing his age.
Did anybody see that Letterman/Oprah/Leno Super Bowl TV spot?
