Talk of the Town

The world of late night TV is an ever-evolving place. Talk shows are handed out seemingly every other week while others are cancelled. Not all the decisions are good ones. Take the braintrust at NBC, which has been languishing in fourth place behind ABC, CBS and Fox for a while now.

Four years ago, the network announced that Jay Leno, who had hosted the Tonight Show since Johnny Carson retired in the early '90s, would be stepping down in 2009 and anointed Conan O'Brien as the heir apparent. Conan had stepped in as host of the 12:30 Late Night program after David Letterman jumped to CBS in 1993. After a rocky start, he made a mark as a funny, silly, and eminently watchable host. The move to 11:30 made sense. But then something strange happened. As the switchover date approached, it became clear that Leno wasn't going to go away quietly. There were rumors he would start a competing talk show at 11:30, so NBC ended up announcing just before O'Brien took over in June that Leno would have his own 10 p.m. "Daily Show"-style program...FIVE nights a week. This must not have made Conan feel too good just as he was about to launch his take on The Tonight Show.

The move totally blew up in NBC's proverbial face. Any Leno stalwarts who might have stuck with The Tonight Show ended up abandoning it for Leno's show, which in turn took a beating in the ratings and even hurt local newscasts as a lead-in. Letterman, after years of trailing Leno in the ratings, began beating O'Brien soundly. And now NBC is considering moving Leno back to the Tonight Show. What this means for O'Brien is unknown but I, for one, think it would be idiotic.

While Conan has dialed back his weirdness for the earlier time slot, much as Letterman did 16 years earlier, he is still consistently funny. Unfortunately it seems that the typical 11:30 audience is older and less accepting of O'Brien's sense of humor. That, combined with the added "must see" factor that came with Letterman's bizarre sex scandal a few months ago, has left O'Brien vulnerable to more network stupidity. And Leno could benefit from the situation, even though his show is a failure critically and in the ratings.

If NBC does return to Leno to 11:30, I hope O'Brien can get out of his contract and land his own show somewhere it'll be appreciated. Maybe Fox would opt for an 11:30 show. Whatever the case, the guy's been totally screwed over by his own network.

I used to like Leno. He was a funny standup in the '80; I even saw him perform a few times. He was a great talk show guest and used to make frequent appearances on Letterman's NBC show:



But after he took over The Tonight Show, Leno became a bland host and lost whatever edge he once had. And as for Conan, he forged his own trail in the 12:30 slot:



I really hope NBC sticks with Conan, but the fact that the brass is thinking about making this switch after less than a year shows what weaselly tools they are. If Leno has any class, he'll step down instead of stealing his old show back. And if he doesn't and Conan is given the boot and decides to go in a different direction, maybe someone will bring this guy back:



UPDATE: And sure enough, 30 minutes after I typed this post, the New York Times reported that NBC is considering the following move: Leno to 11:30, Conan to 12:05, Jimmy Fallon to 1:05. The change will take place after the Winter Olympics end in February. Well, it won't affect me much because I TiVo Conan and Fallon (who consistently has the best music acts on). It's still a diss to Conan, but at least they didn't cancel him. Hopefully this won't cause his ratings to plummet further.