I swear I don’t know who put the assclown suits in charge of NBC for the past ten years – but the last few heads of programming have been the biggest fuckups in the history of television.
I grew up on TV. I have always been an NBC loyalist – but this run of bad managers has turned what was once the ratings juggernaut for DECADES into the lowest rated ‘network’ on television. It takes real incompetence to turn something so good into something so bad. What happened?!
Now as far as the late night shakeup goes – I believe my opinion may carry perhaps a little more weight on the matter than other people my age or younger. The reason being that I was an odd kid and was watching late-night television as a child since the Johnny Carson era.
In fact, I have stated on more than one occasion that David Letterman was my idol. I even arranged a chair and couch in my bedroom in such a way as to mimic the chair/couch combo of a late-night show. (sans desk).
I was there when Carson ended his show. I watched the very last installment – and I tuned in to the very first Tonight Show with Jay Leno. I was always a big Late Night with David Letterman fan and even wrote numerous letters to his viewer mail. (To my chagrin – none of which were ever read on the air. Alas.) I watched his rage against the network and watched both his final Late Night and his first Late Show. I watched many and many an Arsenio Hall show and can even perfectly mimic the announcer introduction word for word, stretching out “Arseniooooo…” as long as Burton Richardson.
Now on this whole big clusterfuck NBC has gotten themselves into -
First things first. We hold this truth to be self evident: Johnny Carson is the best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be. Not to take anything away from Jack Paar, but if Steve Allen was Washington and Jack Paar was Jefferson, then Carson is Lincoln/Kennedy/and both Roosevelts combined. Carson’s stint on the Tonight Show was the stuff of television legend. There is a reason he is so revered and so missed by the general public. The task of filling his enormous shoes is so unenviable, that one wonders why David Letterman ever really wanted it in the first place. That being said, Letterman obviously was passed over for this slot in favor of Carson’s official guest host – Jay Leno. Now at the time, people were surprised by this move. I was not. I always thought it was kind of a logical conclusion that Leno would follow Carson as he reguarly hosted the show in Johnny’s absence for years already.
And to be perfectly honest – as much of a Letterman mark as I am, I have to say I think that was the right decision. Letterman is great at what he does, but for me, he really lost something once he left NBC and got his CBS gig. The most compelling thing to me about Letterman was his rage against the machine. Once he got what he wanted (sort of), that anger – that rebelliousness and hunger was gone and he lost his edge. He still had (and has) a solid show and it makes for some great moments sometimes.
But Leno turned out to be a really good fit for the Tonight Show in the long run. Now here I’m going to give Leno well-deserved credit. He has done an absolutely fantastic job of helming the Tonight Show franchise for years now. Now the Leno-era Tonight Show was never really a show that I thought “Oh I want to watch that.” when I thought of it. Yet, literally every single one I’ve watched has without fail been enjoyable. And Leno has been #1 in late night ratings. It’s those numbers that are causing NBC to flail around in desperation wishing, hoping, and praying they will somehow be able to get them back. Because in the land of TV – the ratings are all that matters. Leno had them, Conan doesn’t (yet).
NBC screwed over Jay Leno by pushing him out of The Tonight Show. Leno didn’ WANT to leave, necessarily. When asked how the subject of his departure was broached by NBC…. Leno’s response: “Broached? I was TOLD.” Leno had been a workhorse who entered his position amid controversy and politics and ended up facing a ratings battle on two fronts against Arsenio AND Letterman. And won them both – having a long successful streak with a solid viewer base and high ratings. And for his efforts? He gets ousted in favor of Conan. This was flat-out wrong.
Conan is a talented young man who was BORN to do what he does. He started out in late night, as his first big break was an SNL writer. Then inherited the reins of Late Night from Letterman and went from being a nervous greenhorn with ratings in the toilet, the whole of America saying he ‘sucked’, and suits calling for his head – to being declared “The King of Late Night” by TV Guide in a few short years. A title he would continue to be called for the next ten years with solid ratings and a rabid fanbase. Musical acts like Jewel and Green Day saw sales dramatically pick up after appearances on the show, leading to record labels vying to get their acts booked. Clearly, this man was the heir-apparent to Carson – albeit geared for an entirely different generation. Even Leno thought so.
But now that NBC has fucked over Leno, and tried to make amends by bringing back what is essentially The Tonight Show with Jay Leno at a prime-time timeslot: an experiment that has blown up in their faces (and only even came about as a band-aid fix to plug a hole NBC had by canceling prime-time scripted shows with a cheap talk show), they now want to rectify the situation by screwing over Conan AND Jimmy Fallon…. moreover they have no real plan and have canceled all their best shows and thus have not provided an adequate prime-time lead-in to their late-night block (nor do they have one lined up) and thus should this crap deal go through – The end result will be that they’ll be screwing over ALL THREE by dicking up the timeslots and leaving all three hosts with no prime time lead-in or support.
This entire debacle is the EPITOME of incompetence. They clearly have learned NOTHING from the fiasco that occurred after Carson retired. And by comparison, that whole clusterfuck looks like a minor incident.
I honestly believe there is a place for Leno on tv somewhere. What that format might be, what timeslot it might work on, and what network it will be on is anybody’s guess, but he’s a good guy and deserves better than how he’s been treated. But at this point, I don’t believe it’s any longer feasible for him to host The Tonight Show. If the Jay Leno Show tanked, I don’t believe shortening it to 30 mins and moving it back is going to rectify anything.
And the sad part is that this whole song and dance is all about ratings. The fucking Neilsen ratings system DOES NOT WORK! HAS NEVER WORKED! AND WILL NEVER WORK!! You would think NBC would’ve figured this out FORTY YEARS AGO when they canceled STAR TREK! This supposed ratings killer lasted two seasons before NBC gave it the axe – and a massive letter writing campaign convinced them to renew it for a 3rd before it was unceremoniously canceled again in the name of ratings. 5 additional Star Trek shows, and 11 feature films later, it is still with us! The last feature film alone grossed $384,953,671.
You would think they might’ve learned from watching Firefly get canceled, only for that network to realize all too late that – HOLY SHIT!! The dvd is selling TRUCKLOADS and TRUCKLOADS of copies!! People actually watched that show! Damn!
You’d think they might’ve picked up a hint from watching Fox cancel Family Guy only to have to uncancel it and apologize to the show creator/producer when the same truckloads of dvds started selling with that franchise as well.
How much of an incompetent moron does Jeff Zucker have to be to turn the most successful TV network ever into a barren wasteland? How does he still have a job? Why are GE/NBC/Universal shareholders not screaming for his head?!
The best possible resolution to this entire debacle is the following:
Jeff Zucker needs to be replaced at NBC.
Jay Leno needs to be graceful and bow out of NBC Late Night tv rather than invoke the ire of Conan’s fans. At this point, it’s really the only move Leno can make, and it’s the classy thing to do anyway. The longer he lingers in this mess the more he’s going to look like the bad guy. NBC put Conan on the Tonight Show because they believed he was the future. For all the positive things Leno is – the one thing he is not is the future.
NBC needs to get a clue and realize that it takes time for shows to build an audience. It took Leno 3 years to finally begin beating Letterman in ratings. CONAN CANNOT BE EXPECTED TO DO IT IN SEVEN MONTHS!
Conan needs to be allowed a little more leeway in his comedy. We love Conan for being Conan – not for being a cleaned up, vanilla version of himself (although with the level of class the Tonight Show has always had – some compromises are to be expected).
Networks as a whole need to find a newer, more accurate model to replace the current ratings system.
And wherever Ben Silverman ran off to – he needs to be shot.
What this network essentially has done is – held up Conan O Brien as the future of The Tonight Show – selling the hell out of him to the world, putting their complete faith and confidence in him as THE man to anchor a revered show… then turned around practially seconds later declaring in so many words that they have NO faith in him and don’t believe he will succeed, all the while screwing over Jay Leno twice in the process.
NBC is upset The Tonight Show lost a lot of its viewership? Well that’s generally what happens when you try to replace your demographic. The previous one goes away! That’s what they WANTED, right? You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
This unprofessionalism is a slap in the face to O’ Brien and to a lesser extent Leno and Fallon – and a total affront to us the viewers. Interneters everywhere are buzzing about a boycott of NBC. One wonders whether a boycott would do any harm to a network that already has nobody watching. If Jeff Zucker keeps staggering around wondering why in the hell NBC ratings stay so low – all he has to do is look in the mirror to find the reason. Incompetence deserves to fail.
