Where did O’Brien, Leno & NBC Go Wrong?
I know I’m coming into this discussion a bit later, but I’ve been sitting back and watching as things unfold. My interest is not intense enough to take sides, but is enough for me to comment. As I see it, each of the three parties involved have made some pretty poor decisions in the last several years to make them a non-comical laughing stock now.
Jay Leno, The NBC Fail Whale, & Conan O'Brien
Conan O’Brien’s Mistakes
When Conan O’Brien negotiated his contract in 2004 he got greedy and insisted that he deserved the Tonight Show. Jay Leno had been the host of the Tonight Show for 17 years. Before that, Johnny Carson held the reigns for 30 years. Jay Leno was not ready to retire and Conan felt he was justified in forcing Jay out. He got greedy rather than waiting his turn when Jay retired.
NBC’s Mistakes
NBC is guilty of having screwed up priorities. Jay Leno had been #1 in his time-slot on the Tonight Show since he took over from Johnny Carson. Conan O’Brien may have done well in his time-slot, but he didn’t have the audience that Jay Leno had simply because not as many people stay up that late. Also, Conan’s humor appealed to a younger audience than had been watching the Tonight show for nearly 40 years.
NBC had the choice of letting O’Brien go or screwing with Leno. They ended up doing both because now O’Brien is leaving and Leno was forced to give up the Tonight Show before he was ready. They also decided to dump their dramas for a cheaper-to-produce stand-up show rather than paying for dramas that their audiences had enjoyed and talked about for decades.
Jay Leno’s Mistakes
Jay Leno had kept the Tonight Show #1 in its time-slot for 17 years. Yet when NBC came to him and said they wanted him to give up the Tonight Show there was no apparent fight. He stepped aside graciously and even acceded to NBC’s lame attempt to keep him from going to another network by hosting the Jay Leno show in the 10:00 p.m. time-slot. He just let the network push him around. Now he’ll be handed back his show, but he will have lost part of his audience because of the clash between himself and O’Brien. He’s become damaged goods.
Conclusion
Leno, O’Brien, and NBC have screwed up a fantastic franchise and tarnished it for the foreseeable future. The sad part was that if any of them had avoided their individual mistakes, this whole conflict would not have happened – or if it had, it would not have been as dramatic or damaging. Anyway, that’s my opinion… What’s yours?
Image Credits:
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NBC Fail Whale Logo Image was retrieved on January 26, 2010 from TwitPic (posted by @studionashvegas).
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Jay Leno image was retrieved on January 26, 2010 from Jay Leno Fun Fan Blog Fotos using Google Images.
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Conan O’Brien image was retrieved on January 26, 2010 from Bill Brioux’s TV Feeds My Family using Google Images.
I read today that NBC actually saved money on the deal… Leno’s buyout was $150 million!!!
That may be true, but they would have saved even more if they would have just let Conan O’Brien go when he was renegotiating his contract in 2004. They could have brought in a new host and let Conan O’Brien go on his merry way.
That may be true, but if they had just let O’Brien go in 2004 they would have saved even more money and not messed with the Tonight Show’s success. O’Brien could have gone on his merry way with no harm and no foul.