TV & Showbiz

If He’s Really So Smart…

Last Updated on January 21, 2017

Let me go ahead and say it: Conan O’Brien is a clever guy. If you don’t believe me, just have a look at this article at PopEater, which just gushes over O’Brien and his Harvard education.

He’s got a quick wit: no one can deny that.

But if he’s really so smart, these two things should have been painfully clear to him when the plan to move Jay Leno to 10:00pm was first announced:

  1. Leno’s show at 10:00pm was just not going to work, particularly when NBC itself made a point of saying that even if it got a measly 1.5 rating, that would be fine because they’d still be making a profit.
  2. NBC wouldn’t want to lose Leno, and would need a place to move him when his 10:00pm show didn’t work.

Today, O’Brien issued a statement addressed to, “People of the Earth,” in which he responded to the plan to move The Tonight Show into the next day, at 12:05am, so that Leno could return to his 11:35pm slot for a half-hour each night. In that statement, he expressed disappointment with NBC’s refusal to give him at least a year to grow the ratings and with their plan to tamper with what he called “the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting.”

He adds this:

“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.”

Did this brilliantly clever comedian just figure that out? Did he honestly think that Leno would be a nightly blockbuster? And did he really believe, that failing that, NBC would just let Leno fade into the sunset as if he’d never been there, as much as they claimed to want to keep him around?

When it came to the question of what to do with Leno if his 10:00pm show vanished, it shouldn’t take even a rocket scientist to come up with the idea of moving him back to where he actually got good numbers.

It certainly shouldn’t have gotten past Conan.

the authorPatrick
Patrick is a Christian with more than 30 years experience in professional writing, producing and marketing. His professional background also includes social media, reporting for broadcast television and the web, directing, videography and photography. He enjoys getting to know people over coffee and spending time with his dog.

2 Comments

  • This was such a no-brainer it is almost impossible to take O’Brien’s statement at face value.

    The whole thing is sad, really. My wife and I used to watch Leno together. SWMBO¹ can’t abide Conan so with the shift to primetime, that mutual viewing activity ended because we both prefer hour-long drama at 10:00 to Leno’s new gig. At this point, new viewing habits have formed and so it is highly unlikely that we will go back to watching Leno. I suspect that many former viewers feel the same way. So there goes the whole 11:35 to 1:35 talk show slot right to hell at NBC. It’ll be years before they recover and frankly, Leno, Conan and Jimmy Fallon will be merely memories, or worse, just footnotes.

    Isn’t it fun watching OTA network TV fall apart?

    ¹ She Who Must Be Obeyed

  • I just don’t “get” Conan. I like Jay better than Letterman, but I have only watched his show twice since he moved to prime time. Everybody screwed up on this deal, as far as I can tell. And everybody GOT screwed, it looks like.

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