On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 7:54 PM, Kevin M. <[email protected]> wrote:
> I admit I like Conan, and the handful of weeks I worked on "Late > Night" were easily among my favorites in my five years in the > industry. But what fans of his don't want to admit is that there is a > way of looking at it as though NBC is making the right choice. There > is a way of looking at Conan as a failure. If, that is, you ignore > everything else that led up to and along with the decision to make him > host of "The Tonight Show." (SNIP some good stuff) > There were several choices in this fiasco, so it is hard to just say "NBC made the right choice". There are three critical points in the timeline: 1. 2004: Zucker (and, apparently, Ebersol) bet that Leno would be less popular than Conan in 2009. NBC chooses to make Conan the Host of TTS in 5 years, congratulating themselves on how smart they were. Leno at the time said he was fine with it - he now represents himself as hurt and pissed off, but swallowing hard because he is a loyal employee and good solider. This turns out not to have been the right choice (in terms of popularity in 2009). 2. 2008: By December of 2008 it was clear that Leno was still the more popular guy, and that he did not want to leave TV, even though he had led NBC to think he would retire. NBC chooses to keep Leno out of competition and save primetime development money by putting Leno in primetime and keeping Conan at Tonight Show. Assuming Leno would get a half a million more in primetime than he got at 11:35, I thought this made financial sense in the short term, but was self defeating financially in the long term, and creatively for every other part of the NBC broadcasting business. Conan says he was okay with this move (he was not); Leno says he was okay with this (he was not). This turns out not to have been the right choice. 3. 2010: By January of 2010 (actually months before then, but NBC was slow to admit this) it is clear that Leno at 10:00 is not working - instead of getting half a million more viewers than he got in late night, he is getting half a million fewer. Factoring everything in, NBC is NOT making money on the JLP, and the affiliates, who waited patiently through November, go into revolt. NBC makes three decisions: a) Cancel the 10:00 Leno experiment (this is the right choice); b) Move Leno back to late night (this is the open question) and c) keep Conan at the Tonight Show but in a diluted, post midnight and post Leno timeslot (this is the wrong choice - it was humiliating to Conan, and arguably a breach of this contract, and an asshole thing to do). So, of the 5 choices that I identify here, I think NBC was clearly wrong with 3 of them, and right with 1 of them (which was basically admitting they were wrong with one of the first choices). The choice where there is some question is, 3b; Once they decide in January of 2010 to cancel Leno in primetime, could they have: 1) severed ties with Leno (eating a substantial penalty to him) and keeping Conan at Tonight Show; 2) severed ties with Conan (eating a substantial penalty to him) and reinstated Leno at Tonight Show or 3) tried to keep both Leno and Conan in late night and avoid paying either the substantial payment. I think you can make a case for either #1 or #2, but #3 is clearly a mistake, both in human, moral terms, and in practical, programming success terms. What all of this means is that NBC tried, 6 years ago, to solve their Leno or Conan problem without repeating the same mistakes they made with Dave 20 years ago, and at almost every step they have failed, and made the wrong choice. Last week, they finally realized that both Leno and Conan are still very popular in late night, Leno is not very popular in primetime, and only one of them can host their late night flagship show, and they chose to go with Leno (once Conan made it clear he would not bend over for them). I think, again, this may be the right choice for them in the short term (though I was wrong about the JLP being right from a financial sense in the short term a year ago, so what do I know). Leno at the Tonight Show is likely to get higher ratings than Conan (BBHH - before bru ha ha) but lower than Leno was getting BC (before Conan). If so, NBC will feel like it is better off, and may be for as many as a couple of years. But their problem is their initial judgment was probably right in the long term - Conan is likely to be more popular down the road than Leno, so what looks like the right choice in 2010 may not look so good in 2012 (and maybe earlier). Plus, choosing Leno over Conan makes it likely they will further fractionate the late night audience with Conan doing a show somewhere with in the next 9 to 12 months; while Leno is so old and damaged it is much less likely he would have actually started a new (and successful) late night show. If forced to choose between Leno and Conan it is hard to see how Leno is the right choice if you are thinking anything but short term. But NBC is in so much trouble right now, they may be happy to take the short term gain and worry about the future another day. A more skillful set of managers may have been able to either structure the original deal with Conan more flexibly, so that he took over TS not in 5 years, but in 5 - 8 years, and whenever Leno decided to retire. If Conan had refused that, he would have looked more like an asshole. Failing that, they might have been able to go to Conan before last year and asked if he would be willing to wait another year or two to take over, perhaps paying him some penalty to wait. More decent managers, having decided they wanted Leno in late night now, would have gone to Conan man to man, told them the score, and paid him what he was owed. Of course Kevin is right that most of what NBC did after December of 2008 had the effect of hurting Conan - arguably he would be getting ratings much closer to Leno's Tonight Show numbers by now if he had not been weighted down by the 10:00 Leno Experiment and general neglect of primetime programming. So the tough choice facing NBC last week (Leno, Conan or the abomination of trying to have both) was largely a function of their own failure.
-- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
