NBC Shakeup -- Jay Leno Comes Out on Top

maxx · January 20, 2010, 8:45am

apparently their was a big rally in ny today. people dressed up as conan and had conando signs with “si se puede”

Warpticon · January 20, 2010, 9:49am

There have been rallies all over the place.

ZombieHipHop · January 20, 2010, 9:57am

Tell me you people just saw that Chinese animation about the whole situation…

otter · January 20, 2010, 9:58am

Conan all day. We still owe him for being involved with the greatest era of the Simpsons.

ThePurpleBunny · January 20, 2010, 10:02am

That Chinese video was godlike.

And Norm with the late gift basket FTW.

Radiantsilvergun3 · January 20, 2010, 10:08am

Hahaha Ride of litigation.

Night · January 20, 2010, 10:25am

What’s done is done, and while on principle Conan got fucked, the worse victims are his staff, i.e. the stagehands, camera crews, and other lowly guys who may or may not have made the trek from NY who might have to look for new jobs. Conan doesn’t have anything to worry about financially, Max should be okay since he drums for The Boss, but the rest of the band, and the other lowly folks that represent the backbone of actually being able to air the show… for them, 7 months and have to find themselves again in his economy.

crimzonflame · January 20, 2010, 11:06am

Recap of what happened on Leno, Letterman and Conan. Watch the Letterman clips if you want to see him get personal about Leno: http://tv.gawker.com/5452391/david-letterman-jay-leno-is-a-thief

Hoonyo · January 20, 2010, 11:23am

i believe his staff are entitled to 15 million of that 40 million settlement.

maxx · January 20, 2010, 12:20pm

man norm is soo underrated as a comedian. he had me dying, even though i knew what he was gonna say. his delivery was too good.

Night · January 20, 2010, 12:38pm

Oh that’s not too bad at all then heh.

dn3000 · January 20, 2010, 7:17pm

Im just waiting for Stern to appear on the show again. Conan, Norm and Stern = win (> Jay/NBC)

Anemone · January 20, 2010, 7:19pm

[media=youtube]lJ9m1an-pQ8[/media]

Valaris · January 20, 2010, 7:22pm

Probably posted before but too good to pass up.

alfaphlex · January 20, 2010, 7:43pm

Dubbed version:[media=youtube]-y04H5mFUFM[/media]

dn3000 · January 20, 2010, 9:20pm

^ Thanks

Warrior_s_Dreams · January 20, 2010, 10:32pm

Succinct, unique, and freakin hilarious. Whoever created this deserves an award.

Septimus_Prime · January 21, 2010, 5:57am

This guy sums things up a lot better than I can: http://forum.blu-ray.com/movie-tv-discussion/127962-leno-back-11-30-a-16.html#post2806463

toefer:

You could easily say that, but you’d be wrong.

If Conan moved to 12:05, none of this would’ve happened. That’s a fact. NBC had the offer on the table, and Conan’s ego prevented him from signing it (although some people are referring to that by the fancier name of “artistic integrity”).

Whether Leno’s ratings caused Conan to have bad ratings can’t be proven, but I’m certainly in the camp that thinks Leno played a very small part, if any, in Conan’s ratings bomb.

People know who Conan is. It’s not like they have to spend months figuring out if they like him. He’s been on for 17 years, and it only takes watching The Tonight Show a few times to see if he’s still the guy from 17 years ago that you didn’t like, or if he’s changed. His ratings for the first few nights were great, but then they tanked. This was months before Leno was on TV, giving people their late-night fix at 10pm.

This is how a lead-in works: You have a show (Show B) that you want people to watch. You put it on right after your most popular show (Show A). So let’s say Show A is 60 minutes long, and airs from 8-9pm. The network is hoping that a large part of that audience doesn’t have a preferred 9pm show, and will leave the channel on after their favorite show (Show A) ends at 9pm. Some of that Show A audience will spill over into Show B, and they’ll watch a few minutes of it, and maybe feel intrigued enough to watch the show. There’s your lead-in.

This is not how a lead-in works: You have a show (Show D) that you want people to watch. You don’t put it on after a popular show though (Show C). You let the affiliates run local news after your popular show (Show C), and then 35 minutes later, finally air Show D. That’s not a lead-in. Show D is too far removed from Show C to argue that Show C has any affect on Show D. Otherwise, how far back are we willing to go? Maybe Access Hollywood’s ratings are 7pm are what’s causing Conan to have bad ratings at 11:35.

Contrary to popular belief, Americans aren’t lazy, lethargic blobs of fat on a couch, incapable of even lifting a finger to touch a button on the remote. Add into this that Show D is a late night show, with an established host.

People either identify with the hosts or not. They either find the hosts funny or they don’t. You could put American Idol on right before Conan, and I don’t imagine Conan’s ratings will benefit much. As soon as Conan walks on stage, the people that don’t find him funny change the channel. They don’t have to give him a chance, or get used to him, because he’s been on TV for 17 years already. People have already formed their opinions on him.

If you are relying on lead-ins for ratings, you’re admitting your show isn’t good enough to draw it’s own ratings, so you’re hoping to trick people into watching it. I can understand the local news complaining, because maybe people really do watch whichever local news happens to come on after the show they watched at 10pm (which says a lot about the quality of the local news in your area). But when the clock hits 11:35, I don’t think people pick Conan vs Letterman vs The Colbert Report, based on what local news they were watching.

http://forum.blu-ray.com/movie-tv-discussion/127962-leno-back-11-30-a-16.html#post2806612

toefer:

Haha, no, we can’t. I mean we can, but no.

Leno’s ratings didn’t fluctuate with lead-ins. NBC has been in the toilet (Julia Robert’s words, not mine) for years. You didn’t see Leno’s ratings tank (haha, punny) along with the rest of the network.

Sure, Leno originally didn’t do great, but as I’ve mentioned before in the thread, within a year of starting his show, he was pulling in over 4 million viewers a night. He was only considered to be failing because Letterman was getting almost 6 million.

Conan only got 7 months, but his ratings were on a steady decline. He debuted to great numbers in June, but within months, he was under 3 million. I think as of a few weeks ago, he was getting about 2.5 million per night.

I refuse to think half of Leno’s audience was a result of strong lead-ins, because those haven’t existed at 10pm on NBC for years. ER was probably the best lead-in they had, but even that show was suffering for several seasons, before NBC finally took it out behind the barn and put two in it’s head. Yet Leno did just fine.

I understand the whole argument about NBC giving Leno a chance to build an audience, but I don’t buy it. As I said before, Leno built an audience after a year. Before that, he was just some stand-up comedian who made some appearances on Letterman, and guest-hosted The Tonight Show for a bit. It was understandable that he needed to build an audience, because people weren’t familiar with him (not to mention he had huge shoes to fill).

By comparison, you’d think a 17-year late-night veteran (Conan) could easily fill the shoes of a guy who apparently isn’t even funny (Leno). But the ratings indicate otherwise. It appears Conan is struggling to even get one shoe on (assuming each shoe is about 2.75 million viewers, based on Leno’s Tonight Show numbers).
I've mentioned it before, but to bring it up again, I don't really prefer one guy over the other. I don't find either Leno or Conan to be knee-slappingly funny, but they both have their share of good moments to go along with the ones that make me scratch my head or roll my eyes. So I don't care if people say Conan is funnier than Leno, as long as a) they acknowledge its a taste-issue, not and objective fact, and b) they don't wrongly vilify Leno.

I understand there's a fair amount of pride involved, but I think Conan should've looked at things a bit more realistically. Instead of his letter complaining about NBC not giving him good lead-ins, or giving him time, he should've realized his ratings were terrible, with no signs of improving, and be happy that NBC still wants him on the network (albeit 30 minutes later).

The idea of Leno agreeing to take back The Tonight Show does seem a bit sheisty, but if you buy what Leno was selling on Monday night, it's about more than him. Doing The Tonight Show again means that the 175 people on his staff will still have jobs when The Jay Leno Show ends.

There's certainly evidence that he cares about his staff (the way he ended The Tonight Show last May; giving them $500k of his own money as a "bonus" during the writer's strike in 2007; giving them $2m of his own money as a "bonus" a couple years before that; etc).

With Conan, I don't know how much his staff's opinion mattered when it came to leaving NBC. I know he negotiated for them to be taken care of, but what does that mean? Do they get roughly a year's pay? Then what? Will he hire them all when he goes to FOX? What if he never gets a show on FOX? 

I’m actually more Team Coco myself (not that Conan even likes that nickname, so it’s plainly obvious that the Internet doesn’t actually give a fuck about what he wants and just wants to rally for a situation), but I don’t think it’s right to vilify and lambaste Leno.

Now, to all the people who are rallying for Conan, why didn’t you watch the show in the last seven months? I was there, watching. Where the hell were you?

The_Epidemic · January 21, 2010, 6:01am

^I tried watching but, im usually sleep by the time it comes on. :sad:

Obi-one-drunkobe · January 21, 2010, 6:05am

stern said the other day he wasnt going to go on conan because he doesnt want to fly to california