A message from Conan O'Brien (He's leaving!)

[bouche]

And that's the end of that.

http://www.tmz.com/2010/01/14/jay-leno-conan-obrien-nbc-the-tonight-show/

Who in the hell is behind Leno here? Isn't this the type of shit that will shun him? I hope all the best entertainers flat-out refuse to guest on his show.

[bouche]

some interesting FACTS that were just published:

"NBC’s The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien has topped all broadcast and cable competition in the key late-night demographic of adults 18-49 for the week of January 4-8. At 12:35 a.m. ET. Last week also saw Conan deliver bigger audiences than CBS's Late Show with David Letterman and the ABC lineup of Nightline and Jimmy Kimmel Live in adults, men and women 18-34, men 18-49 and men 25-54. Conan has finished #1 or tied for #1 among broadcast networks in adult 18-49 rating for nine of the last 11 weeks. The median age of Conan’s audience last week was 45.6, nine years younger than Nightline's" 55.0 and 11 years younger than Letterman’s 57.3."

[rubberdinghy]

I miss Andy Richter

[Jaimoe]

I miss Andy Richter

He's been back as Conan's sidekick since Conan took over the Tonight Show.

This week's shows have been great. Conan hasn't held back and he's really giving it to NBC and Leno, especially in the monologues. His last show is rumoured to be on January 22nd.

[Davey Boy 2.0]

some interesting FACTS that were just published:

"NBC’s The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien has topped all broadcast and cable competition in the key late-night demographic of adults 18-49 for the week of January 4-8. At 12:35 a.m. ET. Last week also saw Conan deliver bigger audiences than CBS's Late Show with David Letterman and the ABC lineup of Nightline and Jimmy Kimmel Live in adults, men and women 18-34, men 18-49 and men 25-54. Conan has finished #1 or tied for #1 among broadcast networks in adult 18-49 rating for nine of the last 11 weeks. The median age of Conan’s audience last week was 45.6, nine years younger than Nightline's" 55.0 and 11 years younger than Letterman’s 57.3."

this is what i was predicting with my new coke allusion

[color:#cccccc]validate me

[Guest Low Roller]

[Jaimoe]

Fucking awesome!

[skelter]

jimmy kimmell is officially amazing. I knew it before (The Man Show was genius) but this is pretty awesome.

[zero]

Didn't Kimmel do '10 at 10' on Leno's show last night and unexpectedly burned the fuck out of him. The Star was saying it was tonight but a friend told me clearly as if he'd seen it.

[Kanada Kev]

^^^^

dude, video is 4 posts above yours!!!

http://www.jambands.ca/sanctuary/showpost.php?post/630385/

Edited January 15, 2010 by Guest

[bouche]

I don't think that latenight shows have been anywhere near this entertaining than the current blah blah blahs. seriously, wicked.

[Esau.]

I'm no proctologist, but Jay Leno is a complete asshole.

[bouche]

jimmy kimmel killed on that appearance. It was almost uncomfortable. Since that show isn't live, I don't know how he was able to shoot out them strong jabs. Same with Conan....how is NBC not in control of their broadcast? I'm really surprised that the same people who bleep the FUCKs and SHITs arent' stopping the trashtalk.

It's likely bringing in lots and lots of ad money at this point 'cause EVERYONE is watching, but still.... the shit Conan says is so fucking hilarious and against the very network that his emissions come from that I'm very confused on where the line can get crossed. He definitely crossed it, but why is there no control? (money?)

[skelter]

jimmy kimmel killed on that appearance. It was almost uncomfortable. Since that show isn't live, I don't know how he was able to shoot out them strong jabs. Same with Conan....how is NBC not in control of their broadcast? I'm really surprised that the same people who bleep the FUCKs and SHITs arent' stopping the trashtalk.

It's likely bringing in lots and lots of ad money at this point 'cause EVERYONE is watching, but still.... the shit Conan says is so fucking hilarious and against the very network that his emissions come from that I'm very confused on where the line can get crossed. He definitely crossed it, but why is there no control? (money?)

I think NBC knows that public opinion is already against them ... if word got out that they were censoring Conan, Jay, etc., it'd be waaaaaaay worse than it already is.

[rubberdinghy]

Really...I'm never up that late! I know it's 1130 but i'm usually in bed.

[zero]

Seriously Bouche you're kidding right? This shit has always gone on, Letterman pilloried the fuck out of NBC all the time. It's that whole divide between NBC corporate and entertainment like The Insider situation with CBS corporate and 60 Minutes.

There was an odd moment a few nights ago where they came back from commercial and the NBC logo was cycling like an Apple waiting logo. I realized a day later it was a massive headfuck a la Phish. There's no tape delay or whatever, it's not live, it's been edited- the only reason there would be a gaffe like that coming out of commercial was if it was from Conan's own control room.

[Jaimoe]

Seriously Bouche you're kidding right? This shit has always gone on, Letterman pilloried the fuck out of NBC all the time. It's that whole divide between NBC corporate and entertainment like The Insider situation with CBS corporate and 60 Minutes.

There was an odd moment a few nights ago where they came back from commercial and the NBC logo was cycling like an Apple waiting logo. I realized a day later it was a massive headfuck a la Phish. There's no tape delay or whatever, it's not live, it's been edited- the only reason there would be a gaffe like that coming out of commercial was if it was from Conan's own control room.

Actually, the show is recorded live-to-tape with few edits (they take out swear words or tighten some of the banter); complete segments are rarely edited-out because they'd be hard to replace given that shows are basically live.

What you saw was a logo that spins during commercial blacks - the original program is recorded and fed to affiliates without commmercials; networks/local stations want a clean feed between segments since it's easier to package and run their own commercials. Almost all programs coming off satellite to affiliates have some sort of logo running during the commercial blacks. Although, NBC's spinning logo is creepy.

[bouche]

Seriously Bouche you're kidding right? This shit has always gone on, Letterman pilloried the fuck out of NBC all the time. It's that whole divide between NBC corporate and entertainment like The Insider situation with CBS corporate and 60 Minutes.

I am old enough to remember the letterman, NBC/GE gags, but I don't remember those being so thick. The reason I question it is because of all the Howard Stern rants from his radio days with NBC. They did everything that they could to control that guy, and he WAS live. NBC has lots of shit that they could put in place of Conan's anti-NBC content but it's clear that they've probably not seen so much hype in so long that they are going to milk it.

[Jaimoe]

Seriously Bouche you're kidding right? This shit has always gone on' date=' Letterman pilloried the fuck out of NBC all the time. It's that whole divide between NBC corporate and entertainment like The Insider situation with CBS corporate and 60 Minutes.

[/quote']

I am old enough to remember the letterman, NBC/GE gags, but I don't remember those being so thick. The reason I question it is because of all the Howard Stern rants from his radio days with NBC. They did everything that they could to control that guy, and he WAS live. NBC has lots of shit that they could put in place of Conan's anti-NBC content but it's clear that they've probably not seen so much hype in so long that they are going to milk it.

When you have no soul, i.e. NBC, you'll overlook almost anything for ratings and selling commercial time. If you thought the Letterman-Leno-NBC Tonight Show battle was interesting 18 years ago, the Conan disaster will blow it out of the water whenever someone gets around to writing an investigative book.

[zero]

"The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" Episode dated 22 May 1992 (1992)

* 'Johnny Carson' wrote all of his remarks for his final Tonight Show. It was broadcast on May 22, 1992, and watched by an estimated eighty million people.

Apparently I've been an avid, and I dare say astute, media watcher from an early age. My family is finally selling the empty nest so today we filled a dumpster with the things families accumulate. I turned up my media journal from Mr. Crowther's Media class in grade 11 at Lawrence Park Collegiate Institute.

June 2, 1992

Johnny and Jay

As an era ends and a new era begins I thought I'd take a bit of a look at late night T.V.

The entire concept is a marketers dream. Low production costs, and high ratings lead to enormous profits.

Format on late night shows is basically plugs mixed into commercials every few minutes. Never will you see a quest that doesn't have a plug for their new show or upcoming dates. Theoretically it is a win/win situation. Big names get some added publicity, and the talk show gets some bonus Neilsens.

Now that Johnny had his last show all that's left is Jay to take his place. His first week in, Jay's making all the stops. Starting off with Billy Crystal later on Tom Cruise and Mel Gibson. With a first week like that I'm not sure how he can follow it up. But as the king of comedy steps down Jay Leno doesn't seem like a likely successor to the throne.

Letterman, Arsenio and the late night view

The question arises if Leno isn't going to take the throne then who will? Arsenio Hall, the whitest black man isn't goin to take the old Johnny audience. Letterman is probably the closest heir but more than likely I think Johnny's old audience will be lost and people will tune out rather than re-tune. But considering that those people are not going to just fall through the cracks then there is a whole slew of hosts to pick them up. Chevy Chase, Whoopi Goldberg and SNL alumnus Dennis Miller are all making attempts. Odds are they'll all fail and if Letterman doesn't get his act straight with contract renegotiations then Leno might just win by disqualification.

[ollie]

TeeFury's shirt of the day:

http://www.teefury.com/

[zero]

the Conan disaster will blow it out of the water whenever someone gets around to writing an investigative book.

That's what I've been thinking about all day. I haven't been through the whole piece but the Globe today framed the issue in these terms, or rather in terms of the issue of NBC's content creators like Fey at 30 Rock having the page want to be the head of the network then quipping that of course there won't be a network. I think this is where it comes full circle to my initial thinking about this in the context of the GE/Comcast merger, GE's pulling out completely over the next 7 years and the likely dissolution of NBC.

[bouche]

June 2, 1992

Johnny and Jay

As an era ends and a new era begins I thought I'd take a bit of a look at late night T.V.

The entire concept is a marketers dream. Low production costs, and high ratings lead to enormous profits.

Format on late night shows is basically plugs mixed into commercials every few minutes. Never will you see a quest that doesn't have a plug for their new show or upcoming dates. Theoretically it is a win/win situation. Big names get some added publicity, and the talk show gets some bonus Neilsens.

Now that Johnny had his last show all that's left is Jay to take his place. His first week in, Jay's making all the stops. Starting off with Billy Crystal later on Tom Cruise and Mel Gibson. With a first week like that I'm not sure how he can follow it up. But as the king of comedy steps down Jay Leno doesn't seem like a likely successor to the throne.

Letterman, Arsenio and the late night view

The question arises if Leno isn't going to take the throne then who will? Arsenio Hall, the whitest black man isn't goin to take the old Johnny audience. Letterman is probably the closest heir but more than likely I think Johnny's old audience will be lost and people will tune out rather than re-tune. But considering that those people are not going to just fall through the cracks then there is a whole slew of hosts to pick them up. Chevy Chase, Whoopi Goldberg and SNL alumnus Dennis Miller are all making attempts. Odds are they'll all fail and if Letterman doesn't get his act straight with contract renegotiations then Leno might just win by disqualification.

we should have awards here for posts. I'd nominate this one fer sure. if you have more about those times, you HAVE to post it. The prediction is not entirely spelled out but it is very accurate to say the least.

[peipunk]

“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 No. 1 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 No. 2, 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 No. 1 up until the day we leave. We hand… [applause here] 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, ‘All right, 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 from the audience] 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 don’t get ratings; he wants. 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.â€

[bouche]

nice speech.