Conan O'Brien is NBC's Biggest Loser
In fear of losing what NBC considered being the future of late night to a competing network Jay Leno in 2004 was approached by NBC executives about handing The Tonight Show to Conan O'Brien. All Conan O'Brien had to do was wait 5 years and his dream of hosting The Tonight Show would come true.
Nonetheless, soon after Conan O'Brien's run on The Tonight Show began; NBC realized that his ratings were not what they thought they would be. Conan O'Brien was supposed to bring in numbers higher than Jay Leno. However, while at the end of his run on Late Night, Conan O'Brien's numbers were starting to slip to Craig Ferguson. A continuation of his falling rating followed Conan O'Brien to The Tonight Show. To be fair Conan O'Brien did bring in a large younger audience but he consistently fell short to David Letterman and Nightline. In addition, over the summer, Conan O'Brien's The Tonight Show lost in the ratings to David Letterman repeats.
It has been said on numerous occasions that The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien was not given the opportunity to make an audience for himself. It was felt that Conan did not have enough of a lead in to sustain a high audience. However this is a weak argument. First, according to NBC executive Dick Ebersol, while Jay Leno was the host of The Tonight Show his lead-ins were lower then those of David Lettermen over at CBS, yet rarely lost in the ratings. Second, Conan O'Brien said himself, back when The Jay Leno Show was announced, that "If I do a good, funny, fresh 'Tonight' show, it won't matter what anybody else is doing."
Unwilling to tweak The Tonight Show to appeal to a wider audience and being stern on not wanting to move The Tonight Show back a half hour, Conan O'Brien finds himself bought out of his dream job. In my opinion this seems like a hasty move over 30 lousy minutes and a better lead in.
After realizing that his outward hostilities might scare off networks such as FOX from making him future offers, Conan O'Brien had a warm moment when speaking about NBC and their work together. Also he asked his younger audience not to be cynical. That is good advice as he himself said he looks forward to having a show again, even if it is from a 7-11 parking lot. Lets just hope they do not try to schedule him after midnight.
Published by Luna Hanie
I am a freelance writer from New York. View profile
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14 Comments
Post a CommentThe title says it all. No need to read anything in it because its all biased crap. The unprofessional title says everything I need to know about the article and the writer.
I was thinking that this article has to have been written by NBC. Or someone who is being paid by NBC. Sorry.
This is the most biased articled I have read...is this you Jay?
Team Leno loves you baby!
I think this is an interesting perspectve on the situation and I doubt any of us really knows what went on behind the closed doors of decision-makers. Time will tell & if Conan's attitude contributed to his downfall, then perhaps he will learn a valuable lesson.
This whole NBC mess over the past two weeks went down because of affiliates complaining about The Jay Leno Show, threatening to stop showing it at 10PM. This didn't start because of Conan's ratings. It had nothing to do with Conan, really. But NBC didn't want to lose Leno to another network (or pay him the $150 mil it would cost to take his show away from him). So they proposed moving The Jay Leno Show after the news and before the Tonight Show because it would be cheaper. Only then was Conan forced into this mess. His show was merely a casualty of the failed Jay Leno Show.
Just to clarify where I am getting some of my information, the non-underlined links are sources not ads. I hope this will help answer some of the messages I am getting.
Who's the idiot that wrote this article? They clearly don't understand ratings. They clearly don't remember how BAD Leno's ratings were for the first 2 years of his takeover from Carson. Leno was so horrible, he made the NEWS ratings drop. NBC affiliates demanded LENO be moved, not Conan. It wasn't Conan's fault. Now, do you want to discuss LEAD IN? Leno was able to build his show because he had good lead in shows in front of him. Conan had Leno's horrible show dropping viewers like flies. They never flipped back. Hell, Leno probably put them to sleep - or comatose.
Leno got trounced by Letterman for two full years when he took over the Tonight Show. Anyone who says 7 months is enough time to evaluate O'Brien's ratings simply doesn't understand late-night television. The lead-in argument is not a weak argument. It's a fact, universally accepted by everyone who understands late-night television. And if you don't understand why moving the Tonight Show back 30 minutes was such a big deal, read Conan's statement again. It would've destroyed the 60-year-old Tonight Show franchise.
The largess of the loss is directly proportional to the largess of the Ego...