Are you with Coco?

[Nique]

UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif., Jan. 12 /PRNewswire/ --
Conan O'Brien released the following statement.

People of Earth:

In the last few days, I've been getting a lot of sympathy calls, and I want to start by making it clear that no one should waste a second feeling sorry for me. For 17 years, I've been getting paid to do what I love most and, in a world with real problems, I've been absurdly lucky. That said, I've been suddenly put in a very public predicament and my bosses are demanding an immediate decision.

Six years ago, I signed a contract with NBC to take over The Tonight Show in June of 2009. Like a lot of us, I grew up watching Johnny Carson every night and the chance to one day sit in that chair has meant everything to me. I worked long and hard to get that opportunity, passed up far more lucrative offers, and since 2004 I have spent literally hundreds of hours thinking of ways to extend the franchise long into the future. It was my mistaken belief that, like my predecessor, I would have the benefit of some time and, just as important, some degree of ratings support from the prime-time schedule. Building a lasting audience at 11:30 is impossible without both.

But sadly, we were never given that chance. After only seven months, with my Tonight Show in its infancy, NBC has decided to react to their terrible difficulties in prime-time by making a change in their long-established late night schedule.
Last Thursday, NBC executives told me they intended to move the Tonight Show to 12:05 to accommodate the Jay Leno Show at 11:35. For 60 years the Tonight Show has aired immediately following the late local news. I sincerely believe that delaying the Tonight Show into the next day to accommodate another comedy program will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting. The Tonight Show at 12:05 simply isn't the Tonight Show. Also, if I accept this move I will be knocking the Late Night show, which I inherited from David Letterman and passed on to Jimmy Fallon, out of its long-held time slot. That would hurt the other NBC franchise that I love, and it would be unfair to Jimmy.

So it has come to this: I cannot express in words how much I enjoy hosting this program and what an enormous personal disappointment it is for me to consider losing it. My staff and I have worked unbelievably hard and we are very proud of our contribution to the legacy of The Tonight Show. But I cannot participate in what I honestly believe is its destruction. Some people will make the argument that with DVRs and the Internet a time slot doesn't matter. But with the Tonight Show, I believe nothing could matter more.

There has been speculation about my going to another network but, to set the record straight, I currently have no other offer and honestly have no idea what happens next. My hope is that NBC and I can resolve this quickly so that my staff, crew, and I can do a show we can be proud of, for a company that values our work.

Have a great day and, for the record, I am truly sorry about my hair; it's always been that way.

Conan O'Brien



The latest (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/15/AR2010011504266.html)

Conan would leave NBC only seven months after taking over "The Tonight Show," at a cost to NBC of close to $30 million, according to published reports.

...

Although NBC is willing to let Conan leave the network and take his talents elsewhere, the network has also tried to kick him as he walks out the door. In an interview with the New York Times, NBC Universal Sports chairman Dick Ebersol said Conan was being replaced on "Tonight" because of "an astounding failure by Conan," ratings-wise. In that interview, Ebersol also called jokes about the controversy that were made this week by Conan and CBS's David Letterman "chicken-hearted" and "gutless."

Conan certainly has a strong (http://www.imwithconan.com/) fanbase. Although NBC certainly has some rights to be concerned with the ratings of their late night programming, they don't seem to think that matters.

Paul Reiser (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-reiser/a-teachable-leno-moment_b_418197.html)weighs in to remind folks that Jay Leno is not evil.

[Solid Snake]

Paul Reiser (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-reiser/a-teachable-leno-moment_b_418197.html)weighs in to remind folks that Jay Leno is not evil.

Sorry. Jay Leno is not nearly as innocent as he's portrayed by Paul here. I mean I understand Paul considers Jay a very good friend, but that friendship clearly leads to a biased interpretation. I think Jay's probably a pretty decent guy in person, but like most decent human beings, he's also a bit self-centered and in the business world, his egotism has led him to screw over others, whether intentionally or not. He basically gunned Letterman down, and overturned the wishes of Johnny Carson in regards to the Tonight Show in the '90s, and a decade or so later he's treating Conan O'Brien in the same way. Conan's staffers sacrificed so much seven months ago to move out to Los Angeles, only to get screwed over, and Leno clearly doesn't give a shit about wrecking any other show, he only cares about his own career prospects.

I don't know if we should expect anything more -- it's all a business, ethical or compassionate behavior isn't the norm in the industry -- but I just keep imagining to myself the following hypothetical: if Letterman had stayed on NBC with the Tonight Show and the circumstances were exactly the same, with O'Brien replacing Letterman instead of Leno as Tonight Show host in '09, what would have happened? And I just can't imagine Letterman behaving in the same way -- I don't think he'd have taken the 10:00pm slot, I don't think he'd betray the history of the Tonight Show by screwing up the timetables, I don't think he'd stab Conan in the back with the same carelessness that Leno's displayed here.

(What irritates me about Leno is really that I hate him as a comedian, so I can't understand why most the country seems to love him and he gets all his preferential treatment. It's comparable to how I'd feel if Dreamworks animated movies were repeatedly more popular than, and more critically beloved, than Pixar's offerings. I just can't understand it. Craig Ferguson is my favorite of the Late Night crew -- watch his show, it's absolutely hysterical -- followed by O'Brien, with Letterman a ways behind. But all of them, and really even Jimmy Kimmel, are leagues ahead of Leno in my book.)

But as for "What team I'm on?" Consider me on Team Haiti. It's fun to discuss these Late Night shenanigans because in the end, no one's really getting hurt -- even O'Brien will make millions of dollars and find another network for him and his staff. But what's going on in Haiti is what more Americans should be talking about, as opposed to these late night antics or "Pants on the Ground" or the NFL playoffs or Avatar or Simon Cowell leaving American Idol. Good luck convincing the majority of the American public that, though. We're truly spoiled citizens living in a privileged country that's effectively using entertainment to deceive ourselves and isolate us from everything that's really happening in the world.

[Nique]

In Leno's defense, he has been very flexible with what the network wants, apparently for a long time, and in certain situations this can be a good trait and he has most certainly benefited from an affable relationship with his bosses. Dick Ebersol (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34880947/ns/entertainment-access_hollywood/), though being pretty unfair to Conan in balming the ratings on him when in reality the entire network isn't doing well, is willing to take the heat for the decision.

“Jeff (Zucker) and I are big boys,” Ebersol said. “When we do something big in the public forum and it doesn’t succeed, we know we’ll be the butt of criticism. But you don’t personally attack someone who hasn’t done anything.”


But would it be good for Leno to defend Conan and not be willing to benefit from his loss? Yes but I don't think he HAS to do that. It is ultimately a buisness deal and the instigation starts with heartless execs. There are certainly people more worthy (http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2010/01/13/2172962.aspx) of our ire at this time than Jay Leno, even if it seems he could be a little more compassionate.

EDIT: Actually, according to this (http://www.mediaite.com/tv/jay-leno-would-like-you-to-know-that-this-is-not-his-fault/), Jay may be simply trying to keep his head above water while still expressing a certain level of contempt for the network.

He certainly seems unhappy with it, based on the three shows he’s done since the news broke. Right at the top, in his show on Jan. 7th, he made it clear that this was not his choice and he was not happy (and he was the first one to invoke Fox with “I hear Fox is beautiful this time of year”). As the story unfolded, Leno refused to accept the spin that it was a “move” rather than a cancellation — and refused to accept the role of the person benefiting from it all (“To be fair, NBC is working on a solution they say in which all parties would be screwed equally”). Last night, he made his contempt for NBC even more clear, and again cast his lot in with the underdogs (“Supposedly we’re moving to 11:30, but even this is not sure. See, my people are upset, Conan’s people are upset. Hey, NBC said they wanted drama at 10—now they got it!”).

[Sky Warrior Bob]

Well Snake, there is this pro-Coco benefit for Haiti going on (http://www.comixny.com/event.aspx?eid=703&sid=2515). Found out about it while I was trying to track down this http://sirmikeofmitchell.com/sirmitchell/conan03.jpg.

From this pro-Conan site (http://www.sirmikeofmitchell.com/imwithcoco/).

Personally, I'm not a fan of either Jay or Conan, as I don't follow late night. Still, it doesn't take a genius to see that NBC has botched the handling of this.

SWB

[Magus]

I've always enjoyed Conan a lot more than Leno. I never watch Leno, and I can't believe NBC didn't think that the Jay Leno show would get horrible ratings in comparison to shows on other networks that are on in the same time slot, at 10:00. I never thought it was going to compete with the latest Without a Trace or You Think You Can Dance or whatever crap is on FOX and CBS. Why did the people at NBC, who are supposed to be far more knowledgeable about ratings? It's simply common sense that it wouldn't beat those other shows out of viewers who enjoy regular TV shows far more than late night comedy, and would lose viewers during that time period to other fare in lieu of having a strong Law and Order show on at that time.

It's sad that Conan AND Leno are put in this position for what was basically a really bad idea from some network execs, though I don't know why Leno didn't think that his show would garner bad ratings as well. Hubris or arrogance, maybe?

Also, what's up with the Jay Leno show's proposed half-hour time slot, is it going to compete with the Colbert Report? I doubt it. He'll barely have time for a monologue and maybe a ten minute chat with a guest with only half an hour.

[Mike McC]

I've always enjoyed Conan a lot more than Leno. I never watch Leno, and I can't believe NBC didn't think that the Jay Leno show would get horrible ratings in comparison to shows on other networks that are on in the same time slot, at 10:00. Actually, The Jay Leno Show was preforming exactly how they had predicted. The problem is that it had an unexpected effect, in that it was lowering the ratings of the local news and any later programs on the network.

[Magus]

So some people were actually staying up that late just to watch Jay Leno when he was on the Tonight Show? Please, people, just get a good night's rest, it'll benefit you way more than watching late night TV just for the sake of watching late night TV.

[Mike McC]

Jay Leno's comedy is safe and inoffensive, palatable (if not all that interesting) to a wide demographic.

He is homogenized talk show host for the masses.

[bluestarultor]

I personally like Leno because he's clean. I like him better than Letterman because he's also friendly. He's the guy with the chin and he's got a bounding charisma that I feel other late night people lack, although I won't put him above Ferguson. The two are both good on their own merits.

[Mike McC]

Like I said, safe and inoffensive.

[Nique]

Just in case this was ever unclear (http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/6d1caacad1/jay-s-2004-announcement) (apparently, it wasn't).

And yes, Conan was very experimental and although I'd say the late night comedy routine always has a certain commentary style that can make even the most offensive material go down smooth, he did lean towards... well, this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FU2l-XU5cg).

[Satan's Onion]

Did you all see where Conan had apparently placed the Tonight Show on Craigslist? ("Only slightly used", if I recall it correctly.) I don't have the link, and it's possible it's been yanked for good now, but nevertheless it's been simply magnificent to see him tear into NBC so much lately.

[bluestarultor]

Like I said, safe and inoffensive.

You make it sound like a bad thing somehow. :p

[Mike McC]

It's not a bad thing, safe sells. It's just a bit bland and flavorless, especially after 17 years.

[Wigmund]

Did you all see where Conan had apparently placed the Tonight Show on Craigslist? ("Only slightly used", if I recall it correctly.) I don't have the link, and it's possible it's been yanked for good now, but nevertheless it's been simply magnificent to see him tear into NBC so much lately.

Looks like a good deal (http://losangeles.craigslist.org/sfv/clt/1551463643.html). Think we need a "Late Night NPF Talk Show"?

[Satan's Onion]

I for one would love an NPF talk show. Do you think they'd be willing to trade the Tonight Show for a slightly used vinyl copy of Bob Dylan At Budokan :p ?

[synkr0nized]

Perhaps I don't give Jimmy Kimmel as much credit as he may be due, for he can be pretty funny (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FNmWFD4oWg). It seemed like at least a few of these hit the mark.

Example (also quoted in the video description):
The best prank I ever pulled was I told a guy that, "Five years from now, I'm gonna give you my show". And then when the five years came, I gave it to him, and then I took it back almost instantly.


As to the whole thing, I think it's a very dick move by NBC. However, I don't think Conan is the best for the Tonight Show time slot. He worked better later at night, when the younger audience that loves him would still be watching. Plus that conflicted less with Colbert. I haven't looked at ratings numbers, but I'd hardly be surprised to see Conan losing NBC ratings compared to before.

[Amake]

Dude should visit Sweden, we get the Tonight Show at arbitrary times between 15 and 03. And several weeks late.

[POS Industries]

Plus that conflicted less with Colbert.
And this right here is why I was actually looking forward to the Tonight Show moving to 12:05 with Conan at the helm. By all accounts, it seems like a dick move on NBC's part, but the the most probable reason that Conan's ratings were hurting was because all of his best segments were up against Colbert, and Colbert had the superior lead-in of The Daily Show compared to Conan's Local 11 o'clock news, so his target audience wasn't switching over to watch him.

The whole thing really would have solved everyone's ratings problems, and while I support Conan as host of the Tonight Show, I can't honestly say I support his clinging to tradition to the point of quitting his job over it from a reasonable standpoint.

However, I also feel that, if anyone should be walking out of the contract over this, it should be Leno, and the fact that he's refusing to pass the torch that he promised to pass when the chips are down says a lot about his character.

[Nique]

But you know, the more I think about it, I understand both perspectives. I see anyone in the Leno camp over here all "Hey look he didn't ask for this but I don't understand why they can't they just go along with what the network decides. Crappy as it is, it's theirs to do what they want with it" and the Conan camp more "Hey Jay acted like it was his show to give in the first place, so why should they play along with the network if they make crappy decisions!?"

The only people to really be mad at is the heads at NBC for allowing Jay to act/think like this was in anyway his decision to begin with if they had no intention of allowing him and Conan to play a part in determining the show's future. Jay should be more outspoken if he isn't happy with the decision, even if he thinks ultimatly they should play along with the network.

[krogothwolf]

I never really watched either or, I found Jay to be unfunny and conan to be slightly more funny but not enough. I stick with watching The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. I do think NBC dropped the Ball, seems a little early to pull the plug on everything. I thought, ratings aside, that because the weekly Jay Leno Show cost significantly less then a prime time drama show would have they weren't actually losing money on it yet, so I don't really understand why after less then a year they are willing to abandon it. Considering it's been a pretty tough year for a lot of people you'd think they'd try to see if they could build up an audience first.

[Mike McC]

You know, the whole "The Tonight Show conflicted with The Colbert Report" argument is kinda silly, because they're both put online for free, and Colbert Report is repeated like four times before the next showing.

[krogothwolf]

It's not that it's conflicted it's just that I find the humour between the 2 shows to be different and I prefer the Daily Show and the Colbert Report over the Tonight Show.

[POS Industries]

You know, the whole "The Tonight Show conflicted with The Colbert Report" argument is kinda silly, because they're both put online for free, and Colbert Report is repeated like four times before the next showing.
Except that the 11:30 first showing is where all the prime sponsorship money comes from, and if companies aren't willing to pay good money to have their commercials air during the Tonight Show, then the Tonight Show isn't making enough money to continue producing.

[Mike McC]

Um, I am still not sure what you are getting at here.

Also, in looking over the ratings, Conan was actually gaining some pretty solid ground in the ratings over the past couple of months, frequently tied or beating Letterman in the key demographics.

[POS Industries]

Um, I am still not sure what you are getting at here.
Television shows make money through advertising revenues gained via sponsorship deals. Sponsors are willing to pay more money to have their commercials aired during shows that more people watch. Therefore, a show that less people watch at the time that it's on is worth less money, and for a network that is currently hemorrhaging cash, any way to increase their revenue right now is absolutely necessary for NBC.

I don't really know how to make the basics of the television business more clear to you.

[Mike McC]

Television shows make money through advertising revenues gained via sponsorship deals. Sponsors are willing to pay more money to have their commercials aired during shows that more people watch. Therefore, a show that less people watch at the time that it's on is worth less money, and for a network that is currently hemorrhaging cash, any way to increase their revenue right now is absolutely necessary for NBC.

I don't really know how to make the basics of the television business more clear to you.Yes, I quite understand that part, thank you. What I don't get is how The Colbert Report factors into that, because Comedy Central and NBC usually get totally different types of advertisers anyway, and the ratings for Colbert have always been much lower than for Conan, what with being cable and all that.

I mean, it's like you mean one thing, but what you are saying has nothing to do with what you mean. It's all quite confusing.

[synkr0nized]

You know, the whole "The Tonight Show conflicted with The Colbert Report" argument is kinda silly, because they're both put online for free, and Colbert Report is repeated like four times before the next showing.

Not really. They both air about the same time originally, and that's what we're talking about. If I am sitting down and flipping channels, chances are good I won't be down in the major networks at 11:30. But I did find myself there after midnight when I had a reason to prior to the hosts moving around to different shows.

If we were talking about who could watch what online / if that was the primary medium, then most of this whole business is silly and unnecessary.

[POS Industries]

Yes, I quite understand that part, thank you. What I don't get is how The Colbert Report factors into that, because Comedy Central and NBC usually get totally different types of advertisers anyway, and the ratings for Colbert have always been much lower than for Conan, what with being cable and all that.

I mean, it's like you mean one thing, but what you are saying has nothing to do with what you mean. It's all quite confusing.
No, what I'm saying is exactly what I mean. And different advertisers means very little when the value of the ad spots for the Tonight Show is lower than the network would prefer. Conan and Colbert have largely the same base audience, while Leno does not. However, Leno's base audience is largely the same people who watch shit like CSI and The Mentalist or whatever, which is what he is currently up against.

So Leno now can't get the same amount of viewers he was pulling in at 11:30 because a lot of them are off watching primetime dramas on other networks and Conan can't pull in the same amount of viewers he was at 12:30 because a lot of them aren't switching over from Comedy Central now that he's up against Colbert. And nobody's watching Jimmy Fallon at 12:30 like they were when Conan was there.

That's three shows with less viewership in their timeslots than they had before the scheduling change, which means the value that they're able to get from sponsors for those shows is less than they would be otherwise.

Yes, Colbert gets less of a share of the ratings than Conan. But if Conan weren't up against Colbert, much of the share of viewers that Colbert is getting at 11:30 would be added to Conan's share, making the show more valuable to sponsors.

[Mike McC]

I honestly don't think the audience overlap for Conan O'Brien and The Colbert Report is as significant as you seem to believe it is.

[Nique]

Anyone catch Jay's statments? This sort of reaffirms my belife that him and Conan are coming from 2 different but completly valid ways of apporaching this situation and they seem to recognize that. Also I'm sick of everyone saying that Conan is being rude or being a baby or whatever - he's making really obvious jabs at Jay during monolouge becuase it's funny but he isn't taking cheap shots or really blaming Jay Leno at all. Hell, they should have each other on their shows to talk about it, it'd probably be hilarious.

And where is everyone getting this idea that Jay is this mastermind or whatever? He's been pretty transparent about what happened.

[Odjn]

I honestly don't think the audience overlap for Conan O'Brien and The Colbert Report is as significant as you seem to believe it is.

He's not explaining what is necessarily correct or what you think, he's explaining the reasoning the networks are using to shuffle the shows around, and these are the same kind of people who do stuff like jumble Firefly or cancel Pushing Daisies.

[Mike McC]

Except he's not really getting the reasoning at all.

Pretty much, it boils down to "Leno got better ratings in that slot than Conan has been." This is most likely due to his bland, safe humor being more genrally appealing than Conan's wacky antics. Leno at 10 PM EST was not a strong lead-in for the Tonight Show; In fact, it was actually hurting the ratings of the local news and the Tonight Show. Moving him to the 11:35 PM slot would not only potentially regain his lost audience, but provide a much stronger lead-in for Conan at 12:05.

Conan's ratings for the key demographics were on par or slightly exceeding Letterman's ratings, though Letterman was getting higher ratings overall (the mean audience age for Late Night is about 10 years older than Conan, putting a lot more outside that 18-49 butter zone advertisers love). So he wasn't exactly doing terrible, he just wasn't doing as good as Leno had been. And really, if given more time, he might have built on that audience quite a bit. Then again, so could have Leno (in fact, they were counting on him gaining ground during winter reruns and over the summer).

I highly doubt Cable shows or networks entered into consideration at all during this process. This was all based on numbers within NBC itself. If there was any external consideration, it was most likely limited to Letterman and Nightline, The Tonight Show's direct competitors on the other networks.

[Solid Snake]

Taiwanese Television Will Save The Day!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJ9m1an-pQ8&feature=player_embedded

EDIT: I particularly like Hulk-Conan v. SuperLeno v. Captain Zucker, with Letterman and Kimmel joining in the fray. =P
And Letterman, Kimmel and all of America appear to have Conan's back in the end!

[POS Industries]

Except he's not really getting the reasoning at all.

Pretty much, it boils down to "Leno got better ratings in that slot than Conan has been."
I'm actually giving you part of the reason right there. Lots of people who had been watching either Colbert or Letterman before and then switching over to Conan when he was at 12:35 aren't now that he's up against shows they were already watching. As you said, the average viewer of Letterman is about 10 years older than the average Conan viewer, but the average Colbert viewer is about the same. Colbert gets somewhere around 1.2 million viewers a night, which is about half of what Conan had been pulling in as host of the Tonight Show.

Even if NBC wasn't taking cable network competitor ratings into account, that's still about a million people who otherwise might be more compelled to tune into Conan if they weren't already five minutes into Colbert by the time the Tonight Show started, which would have made the ratings competition between his show and Letterman's far closer. I should know. I'm one of them.

So yeah, Leno got better ratings at that time slot than Conan did because his audience is totally different from Conan's, Colbert's, and Letterman's. He didn't have to compete with two other shows at the same time bringing in similar brands of wacky humor like Conan has.

[Mike McC]

ORIGINAL POST:I just gotta ask, do you have the numbers to back this up? Because honestly it just sounds like you're assuming this is the case because you and a group of like-minded friends feel that's the way things are. Which is a really bad way to go about things.

Oh, and FYI, The Daily Show's average audience is 6 years younger than Conan's, and The Colbert Report's mean age is about 9 years younger than Conan's.

NEW NOT DOUBLE POSTED POST!

I'm glad to see he left the show with such class and his head held high. Despite leaving one of the greatest shows in broadcast history, I really think he is the winner. Jeff Zucker is destroying NBC, and now Conan won't be destroyed with it.

[Solid Snake]

The ending with Will Ferrell was really poorly done, and not the way I'd prefer to see the show end. (Ferrell making out with the random woman there didn't seem entirely appropriate, but really, my biggest objection was simply that Ferrell stole the spotlight and hogged the camera when O'Brien should have been the center of attention. Tom Hanks did a better job of highlighting how much he'd miss Conan and letting Conan have his moments.)

Aside from that, it was a fine finale. I'll miss Coco but I think that, eventually, NBC will miss him more.

[Mike McC]

I think Freebird was the perfect song to exit on. And the straight performance, featuring some impressive musicians there in the lineup (Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, Ben Harper, Beck) was really well done.

[Satan's Onion]

I thought it was wonderful. I even choked up a bit when he went all serious about not being cynical, because I'm a complete wimp he has a damn good point.

Aaaaand now I'm buying a Cheap Trick mp3 because otherwise that song is going to be in my head for-fucking-ever.

[Archbio]

I even choked up a bit when he went all serious about not being cynical

Diogenes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diogenes_of_Sinope) is really not going to be happy when he hears he's been called out on television.

[Nique]

The Freebird preformance was weird but still fun. And Conan's final speech was refreshingly sincere.

Aaaaand now I'm buying a Cheap Trick mp3 because otherwise that song is going to be in my head for-fucking-ever.

AWESOME montage.

[Mike McC]

Aaaaand now I'm buying a Cheap Trick mp3 because otherwise that song is going to be in my head for-fucking-ever.I think that clip reel was the perfect example how Leno could never be as good as Conan.


See you in September, Coco.