God Save Conan

NBC. What are you doing? Could this have been handled any worse? In case you have not been following the story: Jay Leno used to host the venerable Tonight Show. It was agreed about six years ago that Conan O'Brien would take over in 2009. He did. What NBC did not count on was that Leno's ratings would be topping Letterman at the time he was supposed to hand over the reigns. To keep Leno and to cut costs, NBC decided to have it both ways. Let Conan take The Tonight Show, and then give Leno a new nightly comedy/talk show earlier in prime time. So, every night on NBC you would have Leno/local news/Conan.

The problem: Leno's show has been a failure on the scale of The Titanic. I watched it a couple of times, and it was painfully not funny. The writing sucked, Leno appears uncomfortable and disinterested. Many of the local affiliates started to complain that Leno was losing viewers for their own local news programs immediately following. Additionally, Letterman has been consistently topping Conan's Tonight Show. In other words, NBC lost in every aspect of this experiment/debacle. So then they started to scramble. The plan? Cancel Leno in prime time, let him follow the local news for 30 minutes, and then Conan comes on after Leno.

Is nothing sacred? The Tonight Show follows the local evening news. End of story. As sure as the day followed night, the Tonight Show followed the late local news.

While I was not a huge fan of his era, Leno obviously had a comfortable groove going on the Tonight Show. So NBC stops something that was clearly working for what is perhaps the most loved franchise in television. Don't get me wrong. I was happy for Conan, a very talented comic, when he got the Carson chair. But Conan still has not really found his rhythm yet. Which is fine, it takes a little while. But now NBC is being hugely unfair to Conan (and breaking their contractual arrangement with him) and possibly destroying the holiest of television shows in the process.

Conan, for his part, came out today and said that he would not follow Leno and would not be a part of moving The Tonight Show to a later slot. In a wonderful, bitter and funny statement released today, Conan calls NBC on their BS.

He says in part: "Like a lot of us, I grew up watching Johnny Carson every night and the chance to one day sit in that chair has meant everything to me...After only seven months, with my Tonight Show in its infancy, NBC has decided to react to their terrible difficulties in prime-time by making a change in their long-established late night schedule...Last Thursday, NBC executives told me they intended to move the Tonight Show to 12:05 to accommodate the Jay Leno Show at 11:35. For 60 years the Tonight Show has aired immediately following the late local news. I sincerely believe that delaying the Tonight Show into the next day to accommodate another comedy program will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting. The Tonight Show at 12:05 simply isn’t the Tonight Show...Have a great day and, for the record, I am truly sorry about my hair; it’s always been that way."

Good for Conan. It seems that at least he understands that a new host for the Tonight Show requires some time to get established. When Jack Parr took over for Steve Allen...he needed some time. Carson needed time when he took over for Parr. And Leno was given time to emerge from Carson's shadow. No such patience was granted Conan. I admire Conan for not wanting to be a part of the destruction of this iconic show. NBC forced him into a corner, and he has fought back. Why is NBC even concerned with moving Leno at all? Just cancel him. It makes no sense to me. NBC has treated Conan shamefully, and in trying to allow Leno to save face, they may destroy The Tonight Show.


ABOVE: What would Johnny think of this mess? I'm glad he's not around to see NBC destroy his Tonight Show empire.

Addendum: I watched The Tonight Show last night. Wow. Did you see that? A show on NBC, where for the entire show the host bashes and makes catty comments about NBC. You could almost see the steam coming out of Conan's ears. I know late night hosts have traditionally had fun with their ownership (Letterman has long done that), but this was at a totally different level. Fascinating television.