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What could have been done to prevent the 2010 Tonight Show fiasco?

tall_guy1

tall_guy1

NBC was under a different president in 2004 (I believe Kevin Reilly) when Conan was promised the Tonight Show in 2009. However, execs began to worry when he started losing to Craig Ferguson and Leno held steady in the ratings. Could NBC have paid him off beforehand potentially to avoid it altogether or (less likely) try to keep him at Late Night with a pay raise? If the 10 p.m. slot was affecting affiliates, could they have given him just a few nights a week (maybe even the 11:35 slot on Sunday even.)
 
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The better question might be, what occurred during this situation 13 years ago that might even still be relevant in in 2023 and the answer is, as far as late night TV talk is concerned, maybe not much. So much about the broadcasting business and media landscape in general has changed since then.

Now, probably as many if not more people who watch those shows "live" when they're broadcast, stream it or only watch the segments, interviews and bits that interest them via the internet or an app. While Leno, Letterman, etc. where competitive back in the day, it's long been a lot more friendly between the various hosts. When Colbert made his debut as host of the Late Late show, Dave took him around the building and gave him some tips and pointers about the theater, and even how to operate the temperamental elevator. One of the first people on his new program to wish him luck was Jimmy Fallon. Conan mentioned Colbert's debut on his own show and also sent warm wishes. Jimmy Fallon and Kimmel have switched shows a few times as an April Fool's joke. During the pandemic, at least once the hosts from the 'big 3' networks opened their shows with a Zoom call between the 3 of them, etc.

The one guy who came out looking like a POS from the shenanigans at the Tonight Show over the years was Leno. Many people knew about some of the crap he and his manager/producer pulled to get Leno hired in at NBC when Carson left, rather than Letterman. The whole situation in 2010 with Jay leaving and then taking over again and Conan getting squeezed, didn't cast Leno in a great light, either. As a result, when Letterman retired, he got a lot of solid coverage in the press, he was called the last of an era and there was a lot of hype leading up to his final show. When Leno went out, there just wasn't the same amount of interest. A few media outlets published articles explaining why.
 
Mikey Radio said:
The better question might be, what occurred during this situation 13 years ago that might even still be relevant in in 2023 and the answer is, as far as late night TV talk is concerned, maybe not much. So much about the broadcasting business and media landscape in general has changed since then.

Now, probably as many if not more people who watch those shows "live" when they're broadcast, stream it or only watch the segments, interviews and bits that interest them via the internet or an app. While Leno, Letterman, etc. where competitive back in the day, it's long been a lot more friendly between the various hosts. When Colbert made his debut as host of the Late Late show, Dave took him around the building and gave him some tips and pointers about the theater, and even how to operate the temperamental elevator. One of the first people on his new program to wish him luck was Jimmy Fallon. Conan mentioned Colbert's debut on his own show and also sent warm wishes. Jimmy Fallon and Kimmel have switched shows a few times as an April Fool's joke. During the pandemic, at least once the hosts from the 'big 3' networks opened their shows with a Zoom call between the 3 of them, etc.

The one guy who came out looking like a POS from the shenanigans at the Tonight Show over the years was Leno. Many people knew about some of the crap he and his manager/producer pulled to get Leno hired in at NBC when Carson left, rather than Letterman. The whole situation in 2010 with Jay leaving and then taking over again and Conan getting squeezed, didn't cast Leno in a great light, either. As a result, when Letterman retired, he got a lot of solid coverage in the press, he was called the last of an era and there was a lot of hype leading up to his final show. When Leno went out, there just wasn't the same amount of interest. A few media outlets published articles explaining why.
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It probably would have looked better for Leno to step aside, and probably his PR would have looked better to step away from his short-lived talk show in primetime. I think Leno probably could have petitioned NBC to do something else...maybe something on the USA Network or a sister station. Jay was always a super strong performer at the 11:35 slot, which is understandable why NBC wanted him there, but think maybe could have been handled before flying Conan out to L.A. to start a short-lived stunt. However, Conan didn't seem to be much of a draw, and his TBS numbers were never great either. I am not sure he would have survived if he had kept the Tonight Show in any scenario.
 
to sum it up, the following things happened:

1. Conan's contract with NBC as host of Late Night was coming up in 2004, so NBC knew they didn't want to lose their second hottest late night show host, so they signed him a new deal with a promise, he gets the Tonight Show come 2009.

2. Jay Leno was meant to retire in 2009, when Conan was meant to take over.

3. Jay didn't want to retire, so pretty much, NBC was having to deal with the possibility of losing Leno instead, so they signed him on to a new deal to host a Primetime version of a late night talk show, the Jay Leno Show.

4. the transition happens in 2009, Leno's last show of the first tenure of the Tonight Show airs on Friday, May 29 and then the following Monday, June 1st, Conan's Tonight Show signs on, then the Jay Leno Show debuts at 10 PM ET on Monday, September 14.

5. then ratings became a issue as Leno's demo didn't migrate over the 10 PM ET time slot, the Conan fans didn't migrate well to the 11:35 PM ET and Conan's Tonight Show wasn't the show the fans of the Leno's version liked, and they didn't come back to Conan's Tonight Show. and fans of both shows felt the 2 shows were watered down versions of Conan's Late Night and Leno's Tonight Show, thus rating issues came to be known.

6. NBC wasn't happy with the ratings and neither was Leno and Conan or the Local stations as Leno's failure in primetime was cutting into late local news ratings and they didn't like Conan's Tonight Show being lead in by the local news.

7. NBC knowing that Leno flopped at 10 PM ET wanted to move him back to his old slot as "The Jay Leno Show" and air the show as a 30 minute show, which angered Conan as it would displace the Tonight Show into 12:05 AM ET (which would still be Tonight in the Central time zone) and he didn't want to have his show and late night & Carson Daily's Last Call bumped down by 30 minutes, a meeting was held between NBC network bosses, Conan and his producer Jeff Ross and then the next day, they were done with NBC after realizing they were getting screwed, they got their lawyers involved to sue NBC for breach of contract over broken promises.

8. the drama plays out in public, Leno was mocked by Jimmy Kimmel going as far as to troll Leno in a live via satellite interview where Jimmy was in his studios at the Hollywood Masonic Temple in Hollywood and Leno at NBC studios in Burbank, Letterman had Conan on, and even went as far as to say "Don't blame Leno" as it's not Jay or Conan's fault it was dumb network executives trying to keep both happy and did a poor job at it.

9. NBC Reaches a agreement with Conan's lawyers to release Conan out of his contract, thus officially ending the Conan O'Brien's Tonight Show run and instead of moving "The Jay Leno Show" to 11:35 PM ET, they canceled it and merged it into "The Tonight Show" franchise and Conan's predecessor became Conan's successor, Conan's last show was on Friday, January 22, 2010 and the last episode of "The Jay Leno Show" was Tuesday February 9th, as NBC's late night went on a Olympics break for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

10. Leno's second and final tenure as host of "The Tonight Show" begins on Monday, March 1st, after the Olympics ended, Conan was released from his contract and went on a comedy tour throughout 2010 and was placed on a gag order not to talk about his Tonight Show run, he wouldn't start a new show until November of that year (he had a non-compete clause that ended September 1st), and for the final week of shows on The Tonight Show, he couldn't legally have Howard Stern be a guest on his show due to Stern's own falling out with NBC over his time on the now defunct NBC Radio division's WNBC as well as Conan being awarded $45 Million Dollars along with the payment of his remainder of his contract. Conan would go on to sign on with TBS in the fall of 2010 debuting his new show "Conan" on Monday, November 8th.

11. The NBC executives responsible for this debacle lost their jobs when a regime changed happen shortly after, Conan was able to get a deal to allow his NBC years of video footage to be used by his new employer TBS, also he gain the ability to use his IP for Triumph The Insult Comic Dog character and returned to NBC TV for a cameo.

12. Leno retires from Late Night for good in 2014, Conan retires from late Night 2021 after trimming his show down to 30 minutes in 2019, with the intent to do more shows on HBOMax/Max in the near future but Covid Pandemic screwed things up then the Warner Brothers Discovery merger and Discovery+/HBOMax merger was completed in late May to form Max.


pretty much, letting Conan leave NBC much earlier or letting Leno leave in 2009 as planned would have been the best scenario where there is no "Jay Leno Show" and Conan's tenure would have lasted longer to the point he would have found his groove as host of the Tonight show.
 
Will_H_69_9 said:
pretty much, letting Conan leave NBC much earlier or letting Leno leave in 2009 as planned would have been the best scenario where there is no "Jay Leno Show" and Conan's tenure would have lasted longer to the point he would have found his groove as host of the Tonight show.
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Very good (and thorough) post! If they were uneasy about ratings, they could have paid Conan a sum of money earlier on and he could've found a different home.
 
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Will_H_69_9 said:
9. NBC Reaches a agreement with Conan's lawyers to release Conan out of his contract, thus officially ending the Conan O'Brien's Tonight Show run and instead of moving "The Jay Leno Show" to 11:35 PM ET, they canceled it and merged it into "The Tonight Show" franchise and Conan's predecessor became Conan's successor, Conan's last show was on Friday, January 22, 2010 and the last episode of "The Jay Leno Show" was Tuesday February 9th, as NBC's late night went on a Olympics break for the 2010 Winter Olympics.
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Will_H_69_9 said:
12. Leno retires from Late Night for good in 2014
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Insane that they went through all that and Leno retires 4 years later anyways.
 
NBC basically took the worst possible course of action, by trying to keep too many parties happy.

There were two better courses of action available:
1. Let Leno go to ABC
2. Kept the Jay Leno show at 10pm

Essentially NBC brass got bullied by Jay Leno's agent to create a new job for Jay by dangling the threat of ABC.
And then they got bullied again by Ed Ansin, president of the NBC affiliate in Boston, to have something other than Jay Leno at 10pm.
 
I've had the thought before if having Leno's prime time show one night a week would have done better than Monday through Friday.

A lot of this goes back to the choice of Leno over Letterman when Carson retired. I've wondered before how would it have turned out if NBC chose Letterman to replace Carson. I think in that case Leno would have ended up on CBS or ABC.
 
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