Watching NBC implode must be great fun to Jeff Immelt and his colleagues at GE. Probably not so much fun for Brian Roberts and Comcast. I know the deal was about long-term strategy for both companies, but I'm sure a small ancillary benefit for Immelt and Co. was the satisfaction that, as they looked up from signing the contracts with Comcast, they saw the inevitable train wreck about to occur at NBC primetime (the train was powered by a GE engine ... but that's someone else's problem now)!
But to misquote Shakespeare, I come to praise NBC, not bury them. Now, I will not defend the majority of NBC's actions. The mismanagement of Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien (no relation, which should be obvious by his height and, some might say, talent) is of Olympian proportions. Come to think of it, it makes NBC's expected $100+ million loss on the Winter Olympics look like a molehill. They've alienated Conan to such an extent that he has announced he will not move to 12:05, but would rather leave his network home, where he's been for 17 years.
I'd argue that Conan should have left as soon as NBC announced that, desperate to keep Jay away from ABC or Fox, they were giving him the 10pm slot. This alone made Conan's success almost impossible. Jay would always get first crack at the best guests, first crack at the days events to riff on in his monologue and Jay would take his loyal viewers with him. When Johnny Carson retired, a sizable number of his loyal viewers watched Jay -- they had no choice. Sure, they could watch Letterman but that's not the same ... it's not The Tonight Show! Many became loyal Jay fans. In fact, Carson basically disappeared when he retired, making sure that he didn't rain on Jay's parade. With the Jay-Conan transition, Conan had no such help ... Jay's loyal fans just watched him at 10.
Then there's the abysmal performance of Jay at 10. That was predictable to everyone, except, perhaps, to NBC's programmers.
But give credit where's credit is due. Jeff Zucker and Co. did one big thing right -- they acknowledged, and acted to deal with, the fact that doing 5 nights of hour-long dramas in prime-time on a broadcast network is no longer financially tenable. The math just doesn't add up. Faced with this reality and others, the reaction of most network executives is to 'manage decline' and hold on as long as possible. At least NBC took a shot, even if they executed poorly (to put it kindly).
Lots of old media companies will draw exactly the wrong lessons from this debacle. They'll be convinced that radically re-imagining their business plan based on current realities carries undue risk. They will say "See what happened to NBC when they tried to do it differently?" It's the same thing people say when discussing Katie Couric at CBS. In the early days of her tenure, she and producer Rome Hartman began experimenting with re-formatting The Evening News. They failed, and critics had a field day, saying that Katie was trying to turn the show into Today at night. She wasn't ... and while you can argue with the how ... they should be lauded at least trying. They tried to breathe new life into a dying institution. Tried to bring in viewers that have been inaccessible to them.
Another example that people use is TimesSelect. "You can never charge online for content ... didn't you see what happened to the New York Times with Times Select?" But the fact is, the Times executed a poor plan poorly, probably at the wrong time. That doesn't mean that the Times should just continue on indefinitely with the status-quo. Because it will bankrupt them if they do (unless Carlos Slim takes full control of the paper and bankrolls it as a vanity project).
It's hard to guess where Conan will go next. Perhaps he can go to Comedy Central, airing after the Daily Show and Colbert. It would certainly free him creatively, and give him, finally, strong lead-ins from shows with similar demos. Perhaps NBC's new masters at Comcast will let him out of his contract for such a move -- it's not a direct competitor like ABC or Fox, and their main business is cable, after all, where the Comedy Central airs. Viacom probably couldn't afford Conan's current rates ... but it's no longer about the money. Conan is now faced with rehabilitating a career that has been badly damaged through no fault of his own -- rather, it's been damaged by the network he made hundreds of millions of dollars for.
One other interesting note. Conan's press release named two late-night personalities by name -- David Letterman, the man he revered for so many years (also a man who, foreshadowing his own fate, was mistreated by NBC) and Jimmy Fallon. He didn't mention Jay by name, only referring to The Jay Leno Show. I think it must be particularly galling for Conan to be supplanted by a man who, I suspect, he thinks is a hack.
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(Leno's problems began when local affiliates began complaining that his show was dragging down the ratings for their 11:00 news. It wasn't strong enough as a lead-in.)
When I was a kid--when we had to get up from the sofa, walk over to the TV, and turn the dial--people changed the channel much less frequently. Viewers were more likely to settle in with one network and watch it all night. But it never occurred to me that people still watch TV that way. I'm constantly flicking the remote during a show, let alone between shows.
I had assumed that quaint notions like lead-ins and a network "building an evening" went out with leisure suits and 8-track cassettes. In such a tech savvy world it amazes me that so many TV viewers are still in the Stone Age.
Doesn't matter how good the lead-in is if the local news isn't good enough.
Even when he is funny Conan is too much like Letterman. It might not have worked anyway to put two snarky wise guys up against each other.
To compound the problem, rather than being forward-thinking, they tried to go back to a show format that was decades past its heyday.
If anything, the networks should look to cable to learn something. That's where all the top shows are located. If you produce well-written, creative shows, people will watch. If you produce hackneyed, unfunny drivel because it's cheap, then people won't watch and advertisers won't pay. Garbage in, garbage out.
That Jay has the upper hand here suggests that the network figures that he will be the go-to guy to repair numbers.
You don't look at Jimmy Kimmel's slot. I would. He is the most vulnerable. Fox isn't in every market. To go toe to toe with Jay and Letterman, Conan needs that ABC slot.
Last you have the GE "sale" screwed up. They get 49% of the new entity. Comcast has 51%. The have just as much vested interest in making the late night slots successful.
You are wrong, sir. Probably shouldn't correct people when you don't know.
FOX does have total coverage. It was Rupert Murdoch's signing of the first billion dollar sports contract bringing the NFL to FOX that put them on everywhere.
Where will Conan go?
I'll bet FOX. But it won't be until the Fall at the earliest. FOX stations have programming in place after their 10PM news. Mostly Seinfeld or other off network sit-coms. The FOX network will have to sell Conan to their affiliates.
Will he succeed? It is not a given fact that he will.
How funny to have someone ignorant attempt to "educate" the masses...Do as you say, BEFORE you preach it to others, Brian!
Here's my question, Leno's people knew that this was a risky experiment and put a significant guarantee into the contract, then were they really thinking that NBC would let the experiment run the full contract's length and that the money would guarantee Leno would have a chance to build an audience? And was NBC thinking that they had to keep Jay off of ABC and figured a big guarantee and few months at 10 pm and paying Jay for months to sit if it failed made sense? Or was moving Jay back to 11:35 and push Conan back always NBC's escape plan?
If the point of the contract was the pay Jay to not compete with "The Tonight Show" then what happened? Conan not build numbers fast enough? Changes at NBC both before and after the Comcast deal got signed? I"m waiting for the book on this one. My prediction, late 2008, was that Leno wouldn't work at 10 and scripted programs would come back on Thursday at least. I also think the Jay at 11:35, Conan at 12:05 scheduling has some merits, but I can understand the anger from the principals.
It took Bill Cosby to save that network in the 80s.
Guess Comcast better learn from NBC's history and find another Cos.
I'M WITH COCO!
No COCO, No WATCHO!
THEY WEREN'T (thinking) ... beyond their bottom line (it's cheaper to produce Jay's show than REAL ENTERTAINMENT -- Medium, Southland, etc). Besides, NBC hasn't had a great programming chief since Brian Tartakoff (sadly, deceased years ago).
GE ran NBC like part of its corporate structure -- NOT as a broadcasting operation that had to answer to VIEWERS. We the People (the public) ... viewers OWN THE AIRWAVES -- not NBC (or Comcast).
NBC wasn't bright enough to let Jay walk out the door - WHEN HE RETIRED (as they should have). So, NBC RE-INVENTED the wheel for Jay -- screwing COUNTLESS MILLIONS OF LOYAL VIEWERS IN THE PROCESS. Now, we the VIEWERS see NBC screwing ANOTHER nice man & good talent: CONAN.
Less than three million people want to see Jay Leno -- at any time period. Conan deserves the 11:35pm time slot as he labored FOR 16-YRS as a "second fiddle" when he COULD HAVE gone elsewhere (like Letterman did, when NBC screwed HIM).
Jay got the Tonight Show by playing under-handed (listening in on confidential NBC execs conference calls, etc. THEN PRETENDING he was getting "inside info" from higher-ups). NBC caved to Jay's shenanigans before & LOST LETTERMAN.
All NBC is doing NOW is: creating an ugly BOYCOTT for itself by the MILLIONS of 10pm drama viewers, Conan's fans, and Americans WHO HATE "dirty pool" ... the kind NBC has been playing for years! TEAM COCO FOREVER.
How about having Jay's show on for 2 hours on Friday night? He can make it a weekly extravaganza, it won't have the same feel as a nightly talk show, thus letting Conan still be the main attraction in that respect, and he could make every show special. Expand on his usual shtick and introduce now things. He could move around the country and do the show in different cities more. It's the only win-win situation I can come up with.
BTW, where were you when Conan needed the ratings/viewership? Did you watch his shows religiously?
Here's another thought. This past Monday, we offered Conan his own program here at Shovio.com right smack in his favorite time slot. He can even do the show home in his pjs and big fluffy slippers if he wants. If you get a chance to run this by the auburn one, we'll be waiting for his reply.