A Late Night Mess
And That's What She Said
By: Kim Boyd
Issue date: 2/4/10 Section: Entertainment
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In 2004, when O’Brien’s contract with NBC for The Late Show was running out, the executives at the Peacock were desperate to keep him from moving to Fox to compete with Jay Leno at The Tonight Show. In order to keep Conan, they dangled the golden comedic carrot in front of him— hosting The Tonight Show when Leno’s contract was up in 2009.
Fastforward to 2009: Jay doesn’t want to give up his gig, and with The Tonight Show still number one in the ratings, Jeff Zucker makes another desperate idea, one that is destined to be the biggest screw up in television history. Oh hey, America loves Jay Leno five nights a week. So let’s cut five hours out of our prime-time schedule and show Jay then! Because 90% of America doesn't think this will turn out to be a complete and utter bad idea, so it should work out beautifully.
So NBC, which was already struggling in terms of network ratings, removed five of its 10 p.m. programs. This angered the affiliates because they were once able to ride the bump from “hit” dramas like Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. Now they were riding the failboat of Jay Leno’s big chin and lackluster comedic style. Leno kept sinking in the ratings, and his failure wasn’t merely affecting affiliates news cast’s; they were also affecting Conan’s ratings. With the affiliates threatening to riot, Zucker did another incredibly stupid thing: he thought that Conan would lay down and allow NBC to move Leno into a half an hour spot at 11:35, push The Tonight Show to 12:05 and Late Night to 1:05.
Zucker was wrong. With Leno blasting NBC for canceling his 10 pm show during it, Conan released a statement, a classy and clever statement essentially refusing to play ball: “The Tonight Show at 12:05 simply isn’t The Tonight Show.” Cue the media storm with most people coming down firmly on the side of Conan O’Brien, and fellow late night talkshow hosts David Letterman and Craig Ferguson taking potshots at Leno during their monologues.
But the probable winner from this whole snafu is ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel who did his show, Jimmy Kimmel Live impersonating Leno, complete with Leno’s mannerisms including laughing at his own jokes. Leno then invited Kimmel onto his show where Kimmel proceeded to own him into oblivion. During his interview with Oprah, Leno said that Kimmel “sucker-punched” him. (Although a technical sucker-punch is booting Conan O’Brien as host of The Tonight Show. Just don’t tell Jay that.)
As for the the biggest loser in this whole battle? Well, that would be NBC. Not only did NBC alienate the whole of Team CoCo, (Conan’s fans, including multiple comedians and celebrities) but it has also has alienated the most wanted demographic for advertisers; 18-24 year olds. Yeah, NBC—it’s cynical, but that demographic probably isn’t coming back. And you have no one but yourself to blame.