It has recently been announced that NBC is in discussions with both Conan O'Brien and Jay Leno in efforts to right the sinking ship that is the network's late night programming. The New York Times has described the story in detail and says the deal to move Leno back to 11:35 PM with a half hour show and bump Conan's hour long shift until 12:05 AM is essentially in agreement.
This is a desperate move from the network as they have seen their golden child unable to maintain the ratings that Leno had on the Tonight Show. I can't say I'm too surprised though. Leno provided an easy to digest, cookie cutter form of comedy that the average Joe American ate up. Conan is not that guy. If anyone watched Late Night with Conan O'Brien you knew he had off the wall sketches and irreverent characters such as "The Masturbating Bear" or "Coked-up Werewolf." Could NBC really see the average middle-aged American identifying with Conan's sophomoric, but very intelligent humor? I'm not sure that was their thought process. They didn't want to lose Conan to a rival network and here we are, less than 7 months since Conan took over and NBC is calling it a disaster.
Is there anyway both Leno and Conan can win from this lineup change? I say no. The sad part is that Conan didn't get the time he deserved to build up a new audience at his dream job and has been a company man since day one. The network and Jay Leno disrespected Conan by introducing Leno's primetime show in September which basically doubled as a Tonight Show substitute. Either way, NBC has failed to understand that they had to pick between Conan or Leno. Squeezing both into a increasingly populated late night market only saturated the brand and made things worse. I see this new experiment lasting until the summer and at that point Leno returns to the Tonight Show and Conan flees to another network.
NBC is the ultimate loser here because they have alienated their late night host of the future. How much longer do they think Leno will perform? Johnny Carson was 67 when he finally retired, and Leno is already 59. Conan, at 46, could be the man for next twenty years, but sadly I don't think he'll get past two. I'm holding out hope that Conan prevails, but at this point you have to seriously worry.
1 comment:
Spot on, this was a terrible business decision for NBC and simply dumb to keep both while letting advertisers dictate the future by comparing each to the previous time-slot's performance. Leno's audience exists entirely on network television, Conan's is split between network and on-demand web viewing from the younger generation (Conan's cumulative viewership may arguably be larger). It's not just a new show, it's a new viewer.
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