On Jan 12, 9:22 pm, Joe Ryan <[email protected]> wrote: > Here's one guy thoughts on what going to happen with Leno and Conan. > > First NBC's going to pull Conan sooner rather than later because they can't > have the host of one of their flagship shows slagging the network and Jay > every night.
Quoting Bill Carter: And so [Peter Lassilly] called Dave at home that Saturday and argued the points with him. There was no upside, he told Dave. "It's damaged goods," Lassilly said. "You're not taking over for Johnny Carson. You're taking over for a show that no longer has any class. That's not worth anything; that's not any kind of victory." - from "The Late Shift: Letterman, Leno & the network battle for the night" Granted, the circumstances were a bit different - NBC was toying with the possibility of pulling Leno & installing Letterman as host of "Tonight" after about 6 months, as a way to keep Letterman happy (and at NBC), but Lassilly's point was valid. Letterman wouldn't have been taking over for Carson - he'd be taking over for LENO. I think that over the last 8 months, Conan has managed to restore some of the tradition and panache to the flagship late night program - panache lost during Leno's 16 years in the host's chair. If Jay comes back, he brings "his show" back - the tradition is shattered, and it's not "The Tonight Show" anymore. It's "The Jay Leno Show". The franchise becomes subservient to the host. If Leno comes back to 11:35, it's NOT "Tonight" anymore. It's a tarnished franchise. It's DAMAGED GOODS. > Jay and NBC can say with SOME plausible deniability they didn't want this to > happen, Conan could stay on the Tonight Show but he quit so we gave it back > to Jay. Neither NBC nor Leno would have any plausible deniability. Leno held all the cards regarding the 10pm strip - the network created it FOR HIM. He COULD have gone to the network and said "You know what, guys? This isn't working. I'm not helping the network, I'm not helping the affiliates, and I'm not helping Conan," and tried to walk away, only to have the network pull these stunts, THEN he'd have deniability. But not under the current circumstances. > Up until the Olympics, the Tonight Show is either a Leno rerun or it's guest > hosted. During the Olympics, NBC keeps promoting Leno's return to the Tonight > Show March 1st . Booking guest hosts for "Tonight" will be a logistics nightmare - no celebrity or comic in their right mind wants to get in the middle of all this. And NBC won't waste the 11:35 timeslot leading into the Winter Olympics by running Leno reruns - they're already predicting a loss on the coverage, and don't think for a second that they didn't have stunts planned for outside Conan's studio. > NBC puts in the 10 pm slot some combination of L&O reruns, Dateline NBC and > possibly rerunning their USA programs hoping one gets traction. Sure. That works. They could also pull over Eureka from SyFy. Couldn't do any worse than Leno - could it? > Conan goes to Fox where after a good start he settles into a battle with Dave > and Nightline for second as after a year Jay is back in first place in late > night prompting NBC to say they were right all along. See previous posts re: FOX affils, syndication contracts, and local news. There's also the problem that the legal hangups and the prep associated with launching a new show on a new network means Conan wouldn't be back on the air until the new season starts in September at the earliest. There's also a problem with Leno logistics. If he DID go back to 11:35, NBC'll want to move him over to Universal City, where they can seat a larger audience and make use of the more modern facility. (If memory serves, they're renting the Burbank space at this point, right?) THAT means scrapping Conan's set and building a new one for Leno that plays to his monologue strengths, including the tongue. That can't be done in the course of 2 weeks - especially with most of NBC's support staff in Vancouver. If Leno doesn't back down and leave 11:35 to Conan, there are no real winners here.
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