Team Conan.
Conan O'Brien's kiss-off letter to NBC is going to make him a hero, not only to people who started off loving him (and watching him!) and not only to creative types sick of being pushed around by The Man. It's because he's been cast as the underdog here, unfairly subject to the failings of Jay Leno both as a stand-alone 10 p.m. show and as a crappy lead-in for the Tonight Show.
Conan's statement is funny, but principled and resolute, and this will only add to the popular support he's received as this story has unfolded. It will also add to the Leno backlash.
The Leno backlash has been furious. Despite the fact that he was number one for years in that spot, he seems to have virtually no one on his side. "Team Conan" is now to be everywhere (40,500 results in Google to a whopping 36 for "Team Jay"). There is already an TeamConan on Twitter, and both "Team Conan" and "#TeamConan" are now trending huge on Twitter. Conan won TMZ's "Team Jay or Team Conan?" poll 60-40%; our poll, which asked readers to focus on business, not loyalty, went to Conan by an even wider margin at 69% - 31%. Comedian Patton Oswalt thinks Leno is uncreative and doesn't deserve the spot; even the most cursory of Twitter scans will turn up plentiful, scornful calls for Leno to go away. Even Jerry Seinfeld, who came out in favor NBC, came out in favor of NBC. not Leno. And notably, O'Brien's letter mentions fairness to Jimmy Fallon and a shared history with David Letterman, but has no kind word for his predecessor.
Leno has GOT to know this. And he's got to be very, very unhappy about it. He certainly seems unhappy with it, based on the three shows he's done since the news broke. Right at the top, in his show on Jan. 7th, he made it clear that this was not his choice and he was not happy (and he was the first one to invoke Fox with "I hear Fox is beautiful this time of year"). As the story unfolded, Leno refused to accept the spin that it was a "move" rather than a cancellation -- and refused to accept the role of the person benefiting from it all ("To be fair, NBC is working on a solution they say in which all parties would be screwed equally"). Last night, he made his contempt for NBC even more clear, and again cast his lot in with the underdogs ("Supposedly we're moving to 11:30, but even this is not sure. See, my people are upset, Conan's people are upset. Hey, NBC said they wanted drama at 10--now they got it!").
Everyone has spent the past few days wondering, what does Conan want? But the other question that no one has asked is, what does Leno want? He has made the point repeatedly that he left late night at number one — does he really want to come back like this? Does he want to have to fight back against Letterman, fight against Conan at another network, be cast as the bad guy in this drama in which by all accounts, the nervous, trigger-happy suits at NBC are the ones to blame? He's got money, he's got fame, he's got a legacy and he went out at the top. Why on earth would he want to go backwards, with an added plus of being hated for it?
He doesn't. That's why he has made it so very clear that this was not his move, this is not what he wants, and it's definitely not his fault. But that doesn't matter, because there can only be one hero here, and that's Conan. Ironically, in dismantling and destroying their late-night franchise, NBC has undermined their star, their hero who was supposed to save the day, who has now been cast as the washed-up has been for whom it wasn't enough to just fail once.
And that's what NBC is left with: Thanks to their terrible judgment and collosal lack of vision, they've built up the guy they're kicking out the door and torn down the guy coming in. Way to save late night, you idiots.
Related:
Conan Quits? O'Brien Announces He Won't Do Tonight Show At 12:05am [Mediaite]
Conan Wins the Hearts and Minds of the Internet [Mashable]
Reprinted from Mediaite.
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Here's Leno's monologue from last night. Seem like a fan of NBC to you?
Follow Rachel Sklar on Twitter: www.twitter.com/rachelsklar
http://amandawildnotes.blogspot.com/2010/01/orange-revolution.html
If this is 'not what he wants' then WHY is he going ahead with it? Even NBC's idiot executives couldn't FORCE him to be on television. Leno could simply quit. He announced in 2004 that he intended to retire from the Tonight Show in 2010 and then he very clearly went back on it. Ironically, most of Leno's 2004 press announcement regarding his handing over the Tonight Show revolved around how he desired a smooth transition in contrast to the 1992 drama with David Letterman.
Ms. Sklar, can you explain what I'm missing here? Leno made a commitment in 2004 to hand over the Tonight Show, and no one forced him to do that. He could end all of this by saying he will stick to his original stated plans from 2004. But he seems unable to do that, and reportage like yours serves to reinforce the notion that promises and commitments are quaint and out-dated.
Team Leno.
There were even jokes in 2004 about what network Jay Leno might go to - from Jay Leno himself! That indicates that he was open to leaving NBC for a show on another network, and yet in the end he stayed with NBC and their five year plan.
Here is where Leno's story falls apart: if he had refused in 2004 to cede the Tonight Show to Conan in 2009, how do we know that NBC wouldn't have told Conan to stay at 12:30 or find a new network? It makes a lot more sense from a business perspective.
Let's be clear. though, NBC made promises that NBC abandoned. In order to cut their losses, they tried to have their cake and eat it too. It is hard to remember a more clear case of foot-shooting at the network level. Silverman and Supertrain, maybe. Nonetheless, Leno, despite his anger at the suits and the fact that he could walk and be paid well, decided to go along with returning to 11:35 and at that point, his culpability begins.
All Leno ever did for NBC was win the 11:35 time slot for nearly 15 years. Apparently, that wasn't good enough for them. With that, Leno should finally say, "Nice doing business with you," and move on.
Now that NBC has given the "Tonight" show keys to Conan, he deserves the network's full support. NBC should be standing behind its man, not threatening him.
Forget the money for a moment because all of these guys are wealthy. Conside their careers:
I feel bad for Leno because he had a successful show taken away from him, and then he was set up to fail in prime time.
I feel bad for Conan because he's getting jerked around from all angles as a result of a cock-up that he had nothing to do with.
I feel bad for Jimmy Fallon because his lead-ins are tanking. He needs more time to develop his show and his identity -- and the way things are going, he may not be given that luxury.
Nice work, NBC. You couldn't have messed this up any better if you were actually doing it on purpose.
Jay chose the date he would retire and at 60 he could have left similar to the way Carson did.. on top of his game and to the public anyways gracefully. Unfortunately Jay doesn't know how to do anything with graciousness and class.
And incidentally, who really gives a hoot about what Patton Oswald thinks?
Shows literally get cancelled after only two episodes these days. Why don't networks just keep moving them around, or giving them the time slots of other shows? Leno is getting special treatment. And while I can't really blame him for not wanting to retire, he is still benefitting greatly from special treatment and looks to be doing nothing while NBC tries to screw over Conan to give Leno his cushy job back.
His average number of viewers nightly at the 10 spot was 5.8 Million viewers - which is roughly about the same as what he used to get at the 11.35 slot (in fact higher on some nights when other networks were having reruns at 10).
In comparison, Letterman's numbers at 11.35pm are 4.2 Million viewers which is just about the same as it was when he was up against Leno (slightly higher actually, since some left Conan to see Dave).
The problem for NBC was always that the 5.8 Million which Jay was drawing, while great for a Late Night audience, was not competitive enough for prime-time at 10pm.
So Jay never really bombed or failed. IF anything he's held steady to his usual performance and viewership, while Conan has floundered all the way to 3rd place in the 11.35 spot (behind Letterman and Nightline).
People really need to research their stuff before spewing a whole bunch of nonsense about Leno.