NBC LATE NIGHT SHAKEUP

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8 months ago, Jay Leno “retired” from The Tonight Show and was replaced by Conan O’Brien, who moved his family and staff from New York to Los Angeles to step into the historic hosting duties of NBC’s premiere late night talk show.  Conan was replaced by newcomer Jimmy Fallon, who took over Conan’s former Late Show.  Jay Leno was supposed to “retire,” but months before leaving The Tonight Show, told NBC brass he changed his mind and wanted to stay.  Since the wheels were already in motion promoting Conan to Jay’s old slot and giving Jimmy Fallon his late night big break, NBC decided on a risky compromise — give Jay his own talk/variety show in the 10pm slot.  HUGE MISTAKE!

During the past 4 months since The Jay Leno Show premiered, it has tanked.  Critics called it a cheap retread of his former gig at The Tonight Show and a ratings and momentum killer to Conan and his new gig at The Tonight Show.  NBC affiliates bombarded the network with pleas to end Jay’s 10pm show, since it was killing their lead-in to the 11pm local news.  And NBC brass realized Jay, Conan, and Jimmy were all being whipped in the ratings wars by David Letterman on CBS and Jimmy Kimmel on ABC.  What to do?

The answer was obvious — the network needed to fire Jay and end the awful experiment of a cheap talk show in the 10pm slot against major network-produced dramas.  Except Jay was making substantially more in salary than Conan O’Brien and Jimmy Fallon COMBINED! The network couldn’t see how it made sense for them to eat Jay’s salary along with a heaping helping of crow.  So what bright idea did NBC come up with?  BUMP CONAN!

Yesterday, NBC decided to cancel The Jay Leno Show.  But instead of just firing him outright, NBC has decided to move Jay back to his old 11:30pm slot for a half hour version of his ill-fated talk show.  Except, 11:30 is the slot already held by The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien.  Or at least it WAS!  Over the weekend, NBC gave Conan an ugly ultimatum:  move your show to the midnight to 1am slot so as to make way for Jay Leno again, or else we “let you out your contract” (read: “fire you”) so you can take your show to some other (non-existant) network, while we give Jay the FULL hour back again that you’ll be vacating.  Oh, and Jimmy Fallon:  you’re being moved to 1-2am whether you like it or not.  WOW!

Needless to say, Conan O’Brien must be feeling pretty pissed right about now.  He played second fiddle to Jay all these years waiting for his big break to take over the “big show,” only to have the network yank the rug right out from under him after only 8 months on the job.  Talk about lack of confidence and support.  But come hell or high water, Jay is being returned to the 11:30 slot in mid-February and Conan has a few days to decide if he’ll play second fiddle to Jay once again, or jump ship.  Not an easy decision, since both CBS and ABC already have successful late night talk shows and don’t really need the services of Conan O’Brien.  There was rumor that FOX wants to at least have a conversation with Conan about bringing his show to their network.  But reportedly, FOX is not very serious about entering the late night talk game at this time.

Ironically, Jay Leno was front and center in a similar scandal many years ago, when Johnny Carson retired from The Tonight Show and Jay nudged his former good friend and heir apparent David Letterman out of the hosting job and over to CBS.  Now, Jay is nudging his (likely former) good friend Conan O’Brien out of a job for his own gain yet again.  Oh, what a tangled web we weave.

Brace yourself folks!  This story is about to get extremely messy, with bad blood and bruised feelings strewn everywhere.  More to come as it unfolds.

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