Conan is out, won't do show following Leno
- Thread starter ColdBlooded
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Jay Leno goes light on the jokes, heavy on the truth
January 18, 2010 | 5:52 pm
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/sho...es-light-on-the-jokes-heavy-on-the-truth.html
After a week of Leno-bashing, Jay Leno took time after his monologue on "The Jay Leno Show" tonight to address the giant elephant in the room known as Conan O'Brien and the "The Tonight Show."
The following is a verbatim transcript, provided by NBC:
"I thought maybe I should address this. At least give you my view of what has been going on here at NBC. Oh, let’s start in 2004. 2004 I’m sitting in my office, an NBC executive comes in and says to me, listen, Conan O’Brien has gotten offers from other networks. We don’t want him to go, so we’re going to give him ‘The Tonight Show.’ I said, ‘well, I’ve been number one for 12 years.’ They said, ‘we know that, but we don’t think you can sustain that.’ I said, ‘okay. How about until I fall to number two, then you fire me?’ ‘No, we made this decision.’ I said, ‘that’s fine.’ Don’t blame Conan O’Brien. Nice guy, good family guy, great guy. He and I have talked and not a problem since then. That’s what managers and people do, they try to get something for their clients. I said, ‘I’ll retire just to avoid what happened the last time.’ Okay.
So time goes by and we stay number one up until the day we leave. We hand - (applause)-No, no. Okay, but I’m leaving before my contract is out. About six to eight months early. So before I could go anywhere else, I would be at least a year or 18 months before I could go and do a show somewhere else. I said to NBC, ‘would you release me from my contract.’ They said, ‘we want to keep you here.’ Okay. What are your ideas? They said, ‘how about primetime?’ I said, ‘that will never work.’ No, no, we want to put you on at 10:00. We have done focus groups. People will love you at 10:00. Look at these studies showing Jay’s chin at 10:00. People will go crazy. Didn’t seem like a good idea at the time. I said, ‘alright, can I keep my staff?’ There are 175 people that work here. I said, ‘can I keep my staff?’ Yes, you can. Let’s try it. We guarantee you two years on the air, guaranteed. Now for the first four or five months against original shows like “CSI” you’ll get killed, but in the spring and summer when the reruns come, that’s when you’ll pick up. Okay, great. I agree to that.
Four months go by, we don’t make it. Meanwhile, Conan’s show during the summer, we’re not on, was not doing well. The great hope was that we would help him. Well, we didn’t help him any, okay. They come and go, ‘this show isn’t working. We want to let you go.’ Can you let me out of my contract? No, you’re still a valuable asset to this company. How valuable can I be? You fired me twice. How valuable can I be? Okay. So then, the affiliates are not happy. The affiliates are the ones that own the TV stations. They’re the ones that sort of makes the decisions, they’re not happy with your performance and Conan is not doing well at 11:30. I said, ‘what’s your idea?’ They said, ‘well, look, how about you do a half hour show at 11:30?’ Now, where I come from, when your boss gives you a job and you don’t do it well, I think we did a good job here, but we didn’t’ get the ratings, so you get humbled. I said, ‘okay, I’m not crazy about doing a half hour, but okay. What do you want to do with Conan?’ We’ll put him on at midnight, or 12:05, keeps “The Tonight Show” does all that, he gets the whole hour. I said, okay. You think Conan will go for that? Yes, yes. (laughter) Almost guarantee you. I said okay. Shake hands, that’s it. I don’t have a manager, I don’t have an agent, that’s my handshake deal.
Next thing I see Conan has a story in the paper saying he doesn’t want to do that. They come back to me and they say if he decides to walk and doesn’t want to do it, do you want the show back? I go, ‘yeah, I’ll take the show back. If that’s what he wants to do. This way, we keep our people working, fine.’ So that’s pretty much where we are. It looks like we might be back at 11:30, I’m not sure. I don’t know. (applause) I don’t know. But through all of this - through all of this, Conan O’Brien has been a gentleman. He’s a good guy. I have no animosity towards him. This is all business. If you don’t get the ratings, they take you off the air. I think you know this town, you can do almost anything. You get ratings they keep you. I don’t get ratings, he wants. That was NBC’s solution. It didn’t work so we might have an answer for you tomorrow. So, we’ll see. That’s basically where it is."
January 18, 2010 | 5:52 pm
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/sho...es-light-on-the-jokes-heavy-on-the-truth.html
After a week of Leno-bashing, Jay Leno took time after his monologue on "The Jay Leno Show" tonight to address the giant elephant in the room known as Conan O'Brien and the "The Tonight Show."
The following is a verbatim transcript, provided by NBC:
"I thought maybe I should address this. At least give you my view of what has been going on here at NBC. Oh, let’s start in 2004. 2004 I’m sitting in my office, an NBC executive comes in and says to me, listen, Conan O’Brien has gotten offers from other networks. We don’t want him to go, so we’re going to give him ‘The Tonight Show.’ I said, ‘well, I’ve been number one for 12 years.’ They said, ‘we know that, but we don’t think you can sustain that.’ I said, ‘okay. How about until I fall to number two, then you fire me?’ ‘No, we made this decision.’ I said, ‘that’s fine.’ Don’t blame Conan O’Brien. Nice guy, good family guy, great guy. He and I have talked and not a problem since then. That’s what managers and people do, they try to get something for their clients. I said, ‘I’ll retire just to avoid what happened the last time.’ Okay.
So time goes by and we stay number one up until the day we leave. We hand - (applause)-No, no. Okay, but I’m leaving before my contract is out. About six to eight months early. So before I could go anywhere else, I would be at least a year or 18 months before I could go and do a show somewhere else. I said to NBC, ‘would you release me from my contract.’ They said, ‘we want to keep you here.’ Okay. What are your ideas? They said, ‘how about primetime?’ I said, ‘that will never work.’ No, no, we want to put you on at 10:00. We have done focus groups. People will love you at 10:00. Look at these studies showing Jay’s chin at 10:00. People will go crazy. Didn’t seem like a good idea at the time. I said, ‘alright, can I keep my staff?’ There are 175 people that work here. I said, ‘can I keep my staff?’ Yes, you can. Let’s try it. We guarantee you two years on the air, guaranteed. Now for the first four or five months against original shows like “CSI” you’ll get killed, but in the spring and summer when the reruns come, that’s when you’ll pick up. Okay, great. I agree to that.
Four months go by, we don’t make it. Meanwhile, Conan’s show during the summer, we’re not on, was not doing well. The great hope was that we would help him. Well, we didn’t help him any, okay. They come and go, ‘this show isn’t working. We want to let you go.’ Can you let me out of my contract? No, you’re still a valuable asset to this company. How valuable can I be? You fired me twice. How valuable can I be? Okay. So then, the affiliates are not happy. The affiliates are the ones that own the TV stations. They’re the ones that sort of makes the decisions, they’re not happy with your performance and Conan is not doing well at 11:30. I said, ‘what’s your idea?’ They said, ‘well, look, how about you do a half hour show at 11:30?’ Now, where I come from, when your boss gives you a job and you don’t do it well, I think we did a good job here, but we didn’t’ get the ratings, so you get humbled. I said, ‘okay, I’m not crazy about doing a half hour, but okay. What do you want to do with Conan?’ We’ll put him on at midnight, or 12:05, keeps “The Tonight Show” does all that, he gets the whole hour. I said, okay. You think Conan will go for that? Yes, yes. (laughter) Almost guarantee you. I said okay. Shake hands, that’s it. I don’t have a manager, I don’t have an agent, that’s my handshake deal.
Next thing I see Conan has a story in the paper saying he doesn’t want to do that. They come back to me and they say if he decides to walk and doesn’t want to do it, do you want the show back? I go, ‘yeah, I’ll take the show back. If that’s what he wants to do. This way, we keep our people working, fine.’ So that’s pretty much where we are. It looks like we might be back at 11:30, I’m not sure. I don’t know. (applause) I don’t know. But through all of this - through all of this, Conan O’Brien has been a gentleman. He’s a good guy. I have no animosity towards him. This is all business. If you don’t get the ratings, they take you off the air. I think you know this town, you can do almost anything. You get ratings they keep you. I don’t get ratings, he wants. That was NBC’s solution. It didn’t work so we might have an answer for you tomorrow. So, we’ll see. That’s basically where it is."
^^ If you followed the story at all, the reason they're saying the ratings are bad is because of Leno as the lead-in to the local news. Leno, the news, AND Conan are all doing shitty ratings ever since they put Leno on at 10. It's not as if people followed Leno to his 10 spot and tune out when Conan comes on.
Jay Leno fuckin' sucks. He's boring, and with the way he's been handling all this, he's also proven that he's a bitch.
Jay Leno fuckin' sucks. He's boring, and with the way he's been handling all this, he's also proven that he's a bitch.
LENO WAS DOING 5 MILLION, CONAN IS DOING HALF. WHEN LENO LEFT, SO DID HALF OF THE AUDIENCE. LENO MIGHT NOT HAVE TAKEN ALL HIS FANS TO 10 O'CLOCK, BUT THAT IS A DIFFERENT TIME SLOT, APPLES TO APPLES CONAN IS GETTING HIS FUCKIN PUNK ASS KICKED. IF LENO SUCKS AND HE IS BORING, HOW COME CONAN GETS HALF THE VIEWERS IN THE SAME TIME SLOT?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100119...Ec2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yeQRzbGsDbGVub2FudGljaXBh
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100119...Ec2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yeQRzbGsDbGVub2FudGljaXBh
How many people stay up past 12:35 to watch a show?
Of course people are going to follow Jay, he has been on the longest running show in the history of TV for the last 20 years. Conan was just a show where people with no jobs watched to kill time before they past out in their own puke. Its going to take some TIME for people to warm up to a different brand of comedy. It took Jay nearly a whole YEAR before ratings began to come up when he took over for Carson.
All of Conan's fans followed, there are just MORE Leno fans becuase he got MORE exposure, to a BIGGER show, at an EARLIER time slot. He has been the FACE of the TONIGHT SHOW brand for 2 decades+. Conan has been the face for 8 months.
Of course people are going to follow Jay, he has been on the longest running show in the history of TV for the last 20 years. Conan was just a show where people with no jobs watched to kill time before they past out in their own puke. Its going to take some TIME for people to warm up to a different brand of comedy. It took Jay nearly a whole YEAR before ratings began to come up when he took over for Carson.
All of Conan's fans followed, there are just MORE Leno fans becuase he got MORE exposure, to a BIGGER show, at an EARLIER time slot. He has been the FACE of the TONIGHT SHOW brand for 2 decades+. Conan has been the face for 8 months.
WHEN DAVID LETTERMAN DID THE 12:30 TIME SLOT ON NBC, THE SHOW WAS IMMENSELY POPULAR. WHEN LETTERMAN TOOK OVER THE 11:30 SLOT ON CBS, HIS SHOW BEAT THE TONIGHT SHOW FOR A COUPLE YEARS. SO DONT GIVE ME THAT BULLSHIT ABOUT PEOPLE WARMING UP TO THE SHOW. CONAN O'BRIEN ISNT FUNNY, THAT IS WHY HIS RATINGS SUCK AND THAT IS WHY NBC PUT LENO BACK AT 11:30. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHY PEOPLE HAVE SUCH A HARD TIME ACCEPTING THAT.
soulja boy sells more then mmortel technique, does that mean hes a better rapper?
lil wayne sells more then atmosphere does that mean hes a better rapper?
drake sells moer the army of pharoas hes he better?
all it means is more exsposure like I Pukokeki Ioulo Momu said. people follow and buy what they know and whats forced upon them
lil wayne sells more then atmosphere does that mean hes a better rapper?
drake sells moer the army of pharoas hes he better?
all it means is more exsposure like I Pukokeki Ioulo Momu said. people follow and buy what they know and whats forced upon them
YOUR COMPARING APPLES TO ORANGES. SOULJA BOY'S FAN BASE ARE PRE-TEENS AND IMMORTAL TECHNIQUES FANBASE ARE MATURE LISTENERS. YOUR COMPARING A DIVERSE POOL OF RAP FANS TO AN 11:30PM AUDIENCE. THERE IS A CONSISTENT AUDIENCE FOR 11:30 TV SHOWS AND WHEN JAY LENO WAS ON AT 11:30, THE MAJORITY OF THAT AUDIENCE WATCHED LENO. WHEN HE LEFT, THAT AUDIENCE EITHER MOVED OVER TO LETTERMAN, STARTED WATCHING SOMETHING ELSE OR STOPPED WATCHING TV ALL TOGETHER. CONAN O'BRIEN LOST HALF THE AUDIENCE THAT LENO HAD IN THE SAME TIME SLOT. COME WITH A BETTER ANALOGY NEXT TIME
AND YOU OBVIOUSLY KNOW NOTHING ABOUT BUSINESS, THIS GUY LOST 50% OF THE AUDIENCE, IF YOUR AT WORK AND YOUR DOING 50% OF THE PRODUCTIVITY OF YOUR PREDECESSOR YOUR GOING TO BE FIRED. QUIT COMING AT ME WITH THAT WEAK ASS SOULJA BOY ANALOGY, CUZ ITS GARBAGE, JUST LIKE CONAN OBRIEN. THE SAD SHIT IS THAT THIS WEAK BITCH HAD IT WRITTEN IN HIS CONTRACT THAT HE CAN BE MOVED BACK TO 12:05 BUT HE IS STILL BITCHING AND WALKING AWAY WITH $30 MILLION. I WOULD GIVE THAT FAGGOT A KICK IN THE ASS AND TELL HIM TO KEEP WALKING.
Again, it took nearly a year before Leno started getting top ratings.
That is YOUR opinion. Nothing more. Stop trying to pass subjectivism for truth.
Who said anyone had a hard time with anything? The fact is, in this economy, its a "what have you done for me lately" attitude. 20 years ago, NBC was OK with letting a show "warm up", especially when its the most famous and longest running show EVER on TV. But that doesn't fly these days, obviously.
I dont mind Jay and enjoyed his time on the show. However, I have always liked Conan better...he is my style comedy. I expressed concern for him trying to fill in that spot, becuase his brand of humor doesn't necessarily appeal to the masses...and he was real shaky his first 2 weeks. He is zany and off the wall, nothing like Jay's straight edge, comforting comedy.
I liked Conan better when it was Late Night With Conan O'Brien.
That is YOUR opinion. Nothing more. Stop trying to pass subjectivism for truth.
Who said anyone had a hard time with anything? The fact is, in this economy, its a "what have you done for me lately" attitude. 20 years ago, NBC was OK with letting a show "warm up", especially when its the most famous and longest running show EVER on TV. But that doesn't fly these days, obviously.
I dont mind Jay and enjoyed his time on the show. However, I have always liked Conan better...he is my style comedy. I expressed concern for him trying to fill in that spot, becuase his brand of humor doesn't necessarily appeal to the masses...and he was real shaky his first 2 weeks. He is zany and off the wall, nothing like Jay's straight edge, comforting comedy.
I liked Conan better when it was Late Night With Conan O'Brien.
IM NOT TOO SURE WHAT YOU MEAN BY LENO TAKING A YEAR TO GET TOP RATINGS. DO YOU MEAN TOP RATINGS WITH RESPECT TO HIS OWN TIME ON THE TONIGHT SHOW OR TOP LATE NIGHT RATINGS? WITH RESPECT TO ME THINKING CONAN SUCKS, YES THAT IS MY OPINION, AND IT COUNTERS THE POPULAR SENTIMENT ON HERE THAT LENO DID SOME BITCH SHIT BUT UNDERMINING CONAN AND SO ON AND SO FORTH. FROM WHAT I READ LENO BASICALLY SAID HE WOULD KICK ROCKS AND NBC WANTED HIM TO STAY. LONG STORY SHORT NBC WANTS HIM MORE THAN THEY DO CONAN.