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Jay Leno: 'Don't blame Conan O'Brien'
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NBC still hasn't officially said anything about the resolution to its late-night situation, but the man who's in all likelihood headed back to "The Tonight Show" has decided to speak up.On "The Jay Leno Show" Monday night (Jan. 18), Leno went beyond cracking jokes about the network's late-night mess -- though he did some of those too -- to give his assessment of the situation. He devoted much of the show's second segment to it. Here's what he said:
"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 number one 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 number two, 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 number one up until the day we leave. ... 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 primetime?' 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 makes 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] 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 toward 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. ... 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."
What do you think? Stand-up move by Leno or damage control?
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He makes a good case for himself, but I agree with many others about how disingenuous he can be: he gave Conan every assurance, back in 2004, that he would step aside in 2009. He instead stayed in the game, at the network, and was perfectly willing to replace Conan if NBC desired. Notice that his account pretends Conan just up and left, leaving a big crater at 11:35, when in reality it's been days of negotiations that hinge on Leno's desire to take the network up on returning to 11:35. If he really wanted to stick to his word, and didn't want to upset O'Brien, he could have easily referred back to his years-old assurance and walked away from the coveted timeslot.
NBC initiated each and every bonehead move in this story (starting with the 5-year succession plan that bumped Leno out of late night in the first place) - but Leno is playing ignorant of his cache and his honesty. He may not have liked getting shoved off the Tonight Show, secretly, but he publicly agreed and even made the case for it. Conan couldn't and wouldn't have waited so long for Tonight if he thought Leno was going to stick around and even be up for taking it back. He's right, it is "just business" on the network end. But between him and Conan, it's personal, it relied on their respect for the show and eachother, which Leno clearly violated.
Holy spin doctor
I dont blame Conan. I blame Jay and Zucker.
The big thing here is that Leno, right or wrong, agreed to give up the big chair. His desire to take it back smells like old fish. The Leno audience is based on convenience, the time slot, and that Letterman is unfairly perceived to be abrasive by many. Leno is the pilsbury doughboy of late nirght. What O'Brian and Letterman have is a loyal audience that make an effort to follow them, a devoted viewership that appreciate their quirks and originality. That sort of viewer has to be more valuable to advertisers. Leno will never have the cache or gravitas of Johnny or Jack, or the wit of Dave and Conan but will always attract the lazy middle ground, and slowly drive late night into irrelevance.
I hate that he's saying "Conan's ben a gentleman". We all know that, it's NBC and YOU, Jay Leno, that people feel haven't been acting appropriately. I hate that he's trying to play innocent victim in all of this.
Please, people - just understand: back in the early 90s, when Jay's management pushed fake stories in the press to push out Johnny Carson - he didn't know anything about it. He promises. Now today, when NBC promptly shows Conan the door to make room for Jay to come back to late night, Jay had no idea Conan wouldn't be cool with him taking the time slot back. And Conan had left before he had a chance to make it right, or something. Remember, every sneaky-looking move on Leno's part is purely innocent. (Scary thing is, when I hear him tell it, I actually believe him. He's good...real good.)
Jay is probably one of the most disingenuous people in Hollywood. He had no probably kicking Johnny to the curb and basically screwing over his 'good friend' Dave to get The Tonight Show for himself and then blaming it all on his agent. Classy! This is just Jay being Jay trying to get people to feel bad for him. What goes around comes around. I hope Conan and his staff move on to bigger and better things. NBC and Jay deserve each other.
it took jay years to become #1 in the timeslot. remember hugh grant, Jay??? conan got 7 months. he should have booked hugh. I read that his ratings were adequate until the fall when Jay brought him and the affiliates millions less viewers to carry over to their shows. NBC knew this would happen. They said it would be ok for jays show to do poorly. they misjudged how viewers would drift away from his show.
They should have given the 10pm slot to Conan! he could have done better with it and a younger audience than jays tired material and car racing ever did at that time.
A year from now, NBC will be wishing they kept Conan at 1135pm, count on it!
This is totally Jays way of trying to BS America. Jay should be the one out not Conan. Jay and Zucker both. America should boycott the Jay Leno Show.