The latest on Conan, Leno and NBC (1 Viewer)

[mattCR]

SVU has turned into crap (IMHO), but I'll say it: make the deal and steal some of your shows they already have licensing for cheap.
Available to them through licensing already in place, and how about this for a schedule:

Monday:

Chuck
Heroes
Dateline (or whatever)

Tuesday:

Biggest Loser 2 hour block thing
Law & Order: SVU

Wednesday:

(Total question mark early)
10PM/9PM CST: Law & Order Criminal Intent

Thursday:
Comedy Block (30 Rock/Office/Parks & Recreation/whatever)
Law & Order: UK

Friday: Licensing night!

Friday Night Lights
Merlin S2
Law & Order (Original)

Juts make the 10PM EST slot "Law & Order" in it's many flavors.. BTW: 1/2 hour Jay = total disaster.

 

[Alfonso_M]

Originally Posted by James_Koch .. but it wont be that bad really, most of the time Jimmy Kimmel's guests already appeared in other shows mentioned doing the same number..

I like Carson Daly because of his music inside too, the introductions he's been doing lately for the Bands are great, unfortunately I like the "Studio" performances much better that the Concert shows clips he's been showing lately, both the Video and Audio quality are seriously lacking for my taste.....

 

[Patrick Sun]

A shame they let Southland go to TNT, it would have plugged one of the 10 p.m. timeslots for them.

 

[Shad R]

Poor Conan. I like him better than Jay. Conan seems to have more fun and his focus is on getting a laugh, either at his guests expense or his own. Also he's up for doing more "out there" comedy, Jay is more tame and geared toward a slightly older audience. Man, I hope they don't bump Conan for Leno to come back.

 

[Brent M]

I can't even begin to put into words how much this pisses me off. If NBC sandbags Conan by giving Leno 11:30 back I won't ever watch their network again. Leno should have just gone away like he promised he would when his contract was up and if he still wanted to do a show he should have taken his "talent" to ABC or FOX. While I enjoyed Conan more when he was at 12:30 because he was allowed to be edgier and not forced to appeal so much to the mainstream, the fact is that NBC made their choice giving him The Tonight Show. If I was Conan and they tried to take that away I'd sue their asses back to the stone age.

 

[SilverWook]

Does this mean The Masturbating Bear will be returning?

 

[mattCR]

Jay apparently ripped apart in his monologue (From multiple sources) compiled at DHD...

Happy birthday to Katie Couric, it's her birthday today. She left NBC for another network. I have to give her call to see how that is working out. As you may have heard, there is a rumor floating around that we were cancelled. I heard it coming in this morning on the radio. So far no one has said anything to me. But, Kev, if we did get cancelled, it will give us time to do some traveling. I understand that Fox is beautiful this time of year.
I don’t think there is any truth to the rumors. See, it’s always been my experience that NBC only cancels you when you're in first place. So we are fine. We are OK...
[Later, Leno inserted this comment after a joke.] You know what happened? NBC found four guns in my locker. I was suspended. [Kevin says, “I’m glad they didn’t find them in my locker.”] We will keep following this story....
[Later, Leno returns to NBC yet again.] The Justice Department announced they will conduct an anti-trust review of Comcast's proposed deal to merge with NBC. An anti-trust review. Which is the relationship i have with NBC. Anti-trust. Hey Kev, what does NBC stand for? Never believe your contract."

Word is that if they move Jay, he'd be owed a $100M guaranteed contract they don't want to pay... and Conan has a guaranteed period on the Tonight Show also.. so while NBC may want to reshuffle, it might be out of necessity. Affiliates want Jay gone. NBC doesn't want to pay the hundred million, but if Jay moves somewhere else on the schedule they can renegotiate. They don't want to ax conan either.. too expensive, so move him as well.

This is turning into "change our schedule because we screwed up so bad and can't afford to fix it" plan...

 

[James_Koch]

Okay, so it appears TMZ has another bit of information from their source:

As TMZ first reported, after the Olympics, Jay Leno will get his 11:30 PM time period back. We're told network execs have told Conan they will let him decide if he wants the midnight to 1:00 AM time slot. If he does, Leno's show will only be a half hour. If Conan walks, Leno will get a full hour, informed sources tell TMZ.Our sources say Conan has not decided what he wants. We do know he's pissed, because he was given no advanced warning this was coming. Conan's people told NBC they are considering the offer.

So it appears that if Conan decides he doesn't want to continue, Jay will get a full hour show, and persumably the Tonight Show back.


As for the monologue above, as far as I can tell it was recorded early enough in the day where Jay had only heard the "Jay is being cancelled" rumor all over the media from this morning. I bet he would have been in a much happier mood during the taping if he had heard the new developments by then.

 

[Jeff Adkins]

This makes total sense as Conan has pretty much run The Tonight Show ratings into the sewer. Total viewers were down 49% from 4th quarter 2009 compared to 2008. Leno was averaging 5.03 million viewers, Conan is getting 2.55.

Fallon is pretty much holding his own. He's down about half a million viewers from Conan's 2008 numbers. Conan was barely beating Ferguson last year at 12:30.

From TVbythenumbers:

In late night, LATE SHOW with DAVID LETTERMAN leads “The Tonight Show” (4.22m vs. 2.55m) compared to trailing by -20% last year (4.00m vs. 5.03m). LATE LATE SHOW with CRAIG FERGUSON has a +39% advantage in viewers over “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” (1.95m vs. 1.40m) compared to trailing by -4% last year (1.91m vs. 1.98m).

I can't imagine why NBC ever did this to begin with, but one can't argue that something had to be done. Conan has been a ratings disaster.

 

[Brent M]

Conan was a ratings disaster when he took over Late Night from Letterman too, but NBC didn't bail on him then. That show just happened to stay on the air for 16 years. I do hope Conan leaves NBC after all this and destroys them with a 11:30 show on ABC or FOX. What a pathetically run network.

 

[Jeff Adkins]

Originally Posted by Brent M

Conan was a ratings disaster when he took over Late Night from Letterman too, but NBC didn't bail on him then. That show just happened to stay on the air for 16 years. I do hope Conan leaves NBC after all this and destroys them with a 11:30 show on ABC or FOX. What a pathetically run network.

I don't have the numbers right now....I'll try and find them. But I guarantee you that Conan didn't lose half the viewers when he took over for Letterman.

 

[Hanson]

Does this mean Royal Pains, Psych, White Collar, Burn Notice, and even Monk at 10pm? There isn't anything in the pipe for NBC.

The scary thing is some of those shows got better ratings on USA than Leno did. Waaay better ratings.

 

[EricSchulz]

Originally Posted by Mike Frezon

What an embarassment for NBC. Maybe they should just run Supertrain reruns after the local news.

Johnny & Ed must be spinning in their graves.

Now THERE'S an 80's/Fred Silverman reference you don't see much anymore!

 

[Matt^Brown]

Someone help me remember the details. I thought that Jay Leno wanted to leave the Tonight Show and then after several months decided he still wanted to do it and and then he got the 10 spot. I really like Jay and either time but is he the one messing things up or is it NBC.

 

[Hanson]

That's true. Jay agreed to the decision to leave The Tonight Show in 2009, but started making noise that he wanted to keep working, either with NBC or elsewhere as the date approached. As part of that agreement, NBC signed a contract with Conan giving him a huge payout if Conan didn't move to the 11:35 spot. So this is very much like the Brett Favre situation in Green Bay.

I also dug the Supertrain reference and was going to say something in my last post but forgot.

Maybe they should bring back Supertrain, Manimal, and Pink Lady & Jeff as an homage to the disastrous Silverman years at NBC. BTW, that's Fred, not Ben Silverman, although I never made that connection for some reason.

 

[mattCR]

I'd be up for some Misfits of Science and maybe they can try and reboot Buck Rodgers (which is a Universal owned property). Why not?

 

[Hanson]

They don't need to reboot Misfits of Science since Heroes is stinking up the schedule already

 

[Greg.K]

Letterman must be very amused by all of this.

(Supertrain! It's the Love Boat, only on a big-ass train! Genius!)

 

[Joseph Bolus]

Originally Posted by mattCR

I'd be up for some Misfits of Science and maybe they can try and reboot Buck Rodgers (which is a Universal owned property). Why not?

In all seriousness, doesn't NBC own Battlestar Galactica? They could probably air a two-hour block of it every Friday and do better than Leno ...

 

[mattCR]

They do own BSG. Hell, they own Caprica. Move Caprica to the major net. ASAP.

Friday Night fantasy block. Merlin->BSG->Caprica.