Jay Leno Talks About the NBC Late Night Battle

On Monday's Jay Leno Show, which has not been a ratings beneficiary of the recent late night wars at NBC, the once and future host of The Tonight Show addressed the headline-grabbing soap opera playing out at the Peacock. Conan's out at the end of this week, although the specifics of the deal have not been completely hammered out, and Leno will be back in Carson's chair beginning March 1st. Leno has been doing some damage control about all of this, because whether or not he deserves the scrutiny, Jay has become the bad guy. More than likely, instead of being the trigger man, Leno's relationship with NBC executives simply helped them make up their minds about this switch, the third big mistake the network has made with these two guys and these two shows. When the network was at its lowest point in almost 30 years, it changed hosts of the only consistent winner left on the air. Leno failed at 10pm, as almost anything would have this season, and because nobody watches Jay, Conan has a bad lead-in, which is in direct contrast to the heady 1990s glory days of Seinfeld, Friends, and ER buttressing Leno's growing Tonight Show. But Jay's the bad guy, and to make himself seem like an average guy caught in the middle of all of this, he had Jimmy Kimmel on the show last week to hurl insults, and that seemed like a total plant. All the questions were too set up not to be. But whatever. Nobody saw it anyway; the bit aired on Leno's lowest rated Thursday night ever. And now he's playing Mr. Common Man again, saying at one point that if you don't get ratings you get taken off the air. If that were true, Leno would have lost Tonight in September 1993, when NBC executives met to discuss why Leno was losing so often and so badly to Letterman's then-new Late Show. Leno had a five-minute head start every night because while NBC had a longstanding agreement with affiliates to start Tonight at 11:30, CBS affiliates cashed in on a couple minutes of extra local commercials during the late newscast, pushing Letterman back to 11:35. It's the standard now, but it wasn't then. Still, Late Show pummeled Leno for close to two years. Former GE chairman Jack Welch said during that time, "Letterman has clearly been a success. Jay is doing well, but it really isn't sampling anymore." And here's the kicker: Conan was much more competitive during his seven months than Leno was for over a year. But if you don't get ratings, you're out the door. OK. If that were completely true, NBC would have to dump about 40% of its prime time schedule, too. Here's Leno's account of the events to this point. You can even take it at face value until he feigns ignorance over not knowing whether or not he'll return to the 11:30 slot. The network announced that last week, as well as the 10pm replacements. He was probably in the garage when his bosses made that decision without telling him.

"I thought maybe I should address this. At least give you my view of what has been going on here at NBC. Oh, let’s start in 2004. 2004 I’m sitting in my office, an NBC executive comes in and says to me, 'Listen, Conan O’Brien has gotten offers from other networks. We don’t want him to go, so we’re going to give him The Tonight Show.' I said, ‘Well, I’ve been number one for 12 years.’ They said, ‘We know that, but we don’t think you can sustain that.’ I said, ‘Okay. How about until I fall to number two, then you fire me?’ ‘No, we made this decision.’ I said, ‘That’s fine.’ Don’t blame Conan O’Brien. Nice guy, good family guy, great guy. He and I have talked and not a problem since then. That’s what managers and people do, they try to get something for their clients. I said, ‘I’ll retire just to avoid what happened the last time.’ Okay. "So time goes by and we stay number one up until the day we leave. We hand - (applause) - No, no. Okay, but I’m leaving before my contract is out. About six to eight months early. So before I could go anywhere else, I would be at least a year or 18 months before I could go and do a show somewhere else. I said to NBC, ‘Would you release me from my contract.’ They said, ‘We want to keep you here.’ Okay. What are your ideas? They said, ‘How about prime time?’ I said, ‘That will never work. No, no, we want to put you on at 10:00. We have done focus groups. People will love you at 10:00. Look at these studies showing Jay’s chin at 10:00. People will go crazy.' Didn’t seem like a good idea at the time. I said, ‘Alright, can I keep my staff?’ There are 175 people that work here. I said, ‘Can I keep my staff?’ 'Yes, you can. Let’s try it. We guarantee you two years on the air, guaranteed. Now for the first four or five months against original shows like 'CSI' you’ll get killed, but in the spring and summer, when the reruns come, that’s when you’ll pick up.' Okay, great. I agree to that. "Four months go by, we don’t make it. Meanwhile, Conan’s show during the summer, we’re not on, was not doing well. The great hope was that we would help him. Well, we didn’t help him any, okay. They come and go, ‘This show isn’t working. We want to let you go.’ 'Can you let me out of my contract?' 'No, you’re still a valuable asset to this company.' How valuable can I be? You fired me twice. How valuable can I be? "Okay. So then, the affiliates are not happy. The affiliates are the ones that own the TV stations. They’re the ones that sort of make the decisions, they’re not happy with your performance and Conan is not doing well at 11:30. I said, ‘What’s your idea?’ They said, ‘Well, look, how about you do a half hour show at 11:30?’ Now, where I come from, when your boss gives you a job and you don’t do it well, I think we did a good job here, but we didn’t get the ratings, so you get humbled. I said, ‘Okay, I’m not crazy about doing a half hour, but okay. What do you want to do with Conan?’ 'We’ll put him on at midnight, or 12:05, keeps The Tonight Show, does all that, he gets the whole hour.' I said, 'Okay. You think Conan will go for that?' 'Yes, yes. (laughter) Almost guarantee you.' I said okay. Shake hands, that’s it. I don’t have a manager, I don’t have an agent, that’s my handshake deal. "Next thing I see Conan has a story in the paper saying he doesn’t want to do that. They come back to me and they say if he decides to walk and doesn’t want to do it, do you want the show back? I go, ‘Yeah, I’ll take the show back. If that’s what he wants to do. This way, we keep our people working, fine.’ So that’s pretty much where we are. It looks like we might be back at 11:30, I’m not sure. I don’t know. (applause) I don’t know. But through all of this - through all of this, Conan O’Brien has been a gentleman. He’s a good guy. I have no animosity towards him. This is all business. If you don’t get the ratings, they take you off the air. I think you know this town, you can do almost anything. You get ratings they keep you. I wasn't getting the ratings. He wasn't getting the ratings. That was NBC’s solution. It didn’t work, so we might have an answer for you tomorrow. So, we’ll see. That’s basically where it is."

And as a counterpoint, here's Leno five years ago passing the baton:

Comments

[Orinn]

Thank you for the side by side comparison.
I will be watching Conan all this week just so I dont miss anything of him bein g on the air under these circumstances.

[Ben]

MediaCurves.com conducted a study among 806 late night talk show viewers. Results found that that 38% indicated that they would be less likely to watch Jay Leno’s show if his time slot changes compared to 59% who reported that they would be less likely to watch Conan O’Brien’s show if his time slot changes. Viewers indicated that, given the choice, they would prefer to watch Jay Leno (50%) over David letterman (38%), but would opt to watch David Letterman (49%) over Conan O’Brien (43%).
More in depth results can be seen at:
http://www.mediacurves.com/Entertainment/J7705-NBCLineupChange/Index.cfm
Thanks,
Ben

[Bayou Monroe]

What? Doesn't Jay have a phone? Isn't he man enough to CALL Conan first and see what he thinks of the arrangement first, before jumping into a new deal with NBC? He is not the little 'nice guy' he pretends to be and his false sincerity is very grating!

[Hollywood Insider]

Jay said, "I don’t have a manager, I don’t have an agent..." Oh really? I guess Steve Levine at ICM, is going to be shocked to hear that. Maybe someone should call ICM, 310-550-4000 and tell Steve to join Conan in the unemployment line. In Jay's big campaign to look like a "common man" he either LIED about his agent or he FIRED his agent. Which one is it Jay? I think Steve Levine is nervously waiting by the phone to find out.

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