Up Chucked
A look at the late night mess with Conan, Leno, and NBC.
News travels fast and is recycled endlessly in the digital age, and so despite the fact that it has been less than a week since news of NBC’s late night implosion became public, I’m going to assume that I don’t need to give a detailed recap of the whole story. Instead, let’s stick to the high(low)lights: 3 months after Conan O’Brien took over Jay Leno’s spot as host of “The Tonight Show” NBC put Jay Leno back on the air in primetime to host “The Jay Leno Show,” which was essentially his version of “The Tonight Show” pushed back to 10 p.m. (9 central). Leno’s show tanked in the ratings, providing no lead-in for local newscasts or for Conan’s show. NBC affiliates brought out the torches, and NBC’s response was to attempt to move Leno’s show back to “The Tonight Show’s” original timeslot and bump Conan back by 40 minutes or so. Conan eloquently but forcefully refused to move his show, and we have all had the pleasure of watching NBC try to un-shit the bed for the past week.
The whole affair has been huge news—so huge that a lot of people don’t seem to realize that an earthquake in Haiti on Tuesday has decimated the country and left upwards of 100,000 dead, but that’s an argument for another column—and despite the fact that a number of people have weighed in, I still have yet to read a truly level-headed analysis of the situation. And you know what they say: If the professionals can’t do it, you should probably do it yourself. (side-note: no one says that)
So, in the interest of better-understanding this situation, I think it might be helpful to clear a few points up:
1: Jay Leno is not who you think he is: If I were gauging by FaceBook statuses and Tweets alone, I would put the public support gauge at 100% for Conan, and -2% for Leno. The general consensus seems to be that Conan is much funnier than Leno (true), and Leno’s return to late night is fucking things up for a lot of people (also true). Even other late night hosts like Letterman, Jimmy Kimmel, and Craig Ferguson have made it clear in their monologues that they’re on Conan’s side in the fracas. But I think it’s worth pointing out that Jay Leno isn’t the one who decided to move his show to a new timeslot—that’s on NBC’s shoulders.
And not for nothing, but Leno didn’t want to give up his “Tonight Show” gig in the first place. Seven years ago Conan’s contract with NBC was up for renewal, and he told his bosses that other networks (ahem, ABC) were offering him contracts for a show right after the local news broadcasts. Rather than lose Conan to another network, NBC ever-so-gracefully encouraged Leno to retire at the end of his contract so that Conan could slide into his spot. Though he initially agreed, it soon became clear that Leno was still having fun hosting “The Tonight Show,” and that he didn’t want out of the business just yet. And really, can you blame him? How would you feel if you had worked a job for 17 years, were popular and successful at your work, and then were forced out for someone younger? “The Jay Leno Show” was an attempt to continue doing a job he loved while still stepping aside and allowing Conan to take over the late night realm.
And while I think that Conan is much funnier than Leno, I think it’s important to give Jay his due. Most younger viewers see him as too friendly, too generic, too bland to be really funny. And as the host of “The Tonight Show,” this is by and large true. His program was inoffensive and offered easy laughs, which is why it is so popular with older viewers. But as a stand-up comic, Leno was known for having some bite in his humor. He made a conscious decision about what kind of persona he would adopt on television. If you read any of the interviews he did when leaving “The Tonight Show” (like this one from RollingStone), it’s clear that Leno is a hell of a lot sharper than audiences give him credit for being.
2. Conan was going to need time to be successful: Speaking of being sharp, all of the interviews that Conan did prior to his move from New York to Los Angeles were a stark reminder that despite the fact that his show features characters like the Masturbating Bear, he is a very, very smart guy. I mean, he went to Harvard, people. In those interviews, he often spoke about how he couldn’t try to be Jay Leno 2.0; that he only knew how to do his own brand of comedy, and that if he tried to be something or something else the show would ultimately fail.
That’s a valid point, but the flip side of it is that NBC should not have expected Conan to keep the bulk of Leno’s large audience share. In the same way that Conan can’t be someone other than himself, the audience that was familiar with Leno for 17 years can’t be expected to make such a drastic change (and Leno-to-Conan is a pretty big shift in style) with ease. Conan was always going to lose a lot of Leno viewers, and what he needed was time to build his own audience for “The Tonight Show,” much the way he did with “The Late Show.” Those people pointing out that Conan wasn’t exactly a ratings powerhouse are missing the big picture.
3. Conan is the only one with an eye to legacy: “The Tonight Show” has been a late night institution for 48 years, and for all of that half-century it has followed the late local news broadcasts. Conan O’Brien is younger than Jay Leno and all of his bosses at NBC, and yet he seems to be the only one with a modicum of respect for the legacy and the dignity of “The Tonight Show.” His statement refusing to move his show to another time slot was a lot like the show itself—intelligent, measured, and funny.
4. The creative juices are flowing: Ever since the story broke, the monologues on all the late shows have been decidedly funnier than in weeks past. Letterman has gotten in a few winners (like a fake promo for a new Law & Order series: “Law & Order: Leno Victims Unit”), but Conan has been absolutely hysterical as he shreds his bosses at NBC. My favorite line? When he said he used to watch Johnny Carson host “The Tonight Show” and dreamed to “one day host that same show for seven month.”
5. I don’t see how this ends well for Conan: As I said, I think that Conan has been the most consistently classy and funny person in this situation, which is why it’s a shame that he is most likely the one to get screwed over. As of right now, if NBC continues with its plans to move Leno’s show, Conan won’t be doing “The Tonight Show” much longer. If Conan leaves the network he will get a big payout on his contract, but that will allow Leno to move back into hosting “The Tonight Show,” meaning that the past 8 months will have been little more than a convoluted way of running Conan off the network.
The other problem is that Conan’s other options are not particularly attractive. There has been a lot of talk of Fox having an interest in a late night show, but Fox is where talk show hosts go to die. Supposedly, ABC also has an interest in Conan, but in order to put him on the air the network would have to move Jimmy Kimmel’s show to a later time slot, and I’m not sure if Conan wants to do to Kimmel the same thing that Leno and NBC are currently doing to him.
Posted by Ryan Peters, Ryan Peters on Jan 14, 2010 @ 12:00 am
