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Conan O'Brien on '60 Minutes': NBC relationship turned 'toxic'
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Conan O'Brien may not be able to host a TV show until September, but the media blackout on him doing televised interviews will end in a just a couple of days.O'Brien talks with "60 Minutes" correspondent Steve Kroft on Sunday (May 2) in his first interview since leaving NBC and "The Tonight Show" in January. Three guesses as to what the major topic of discussion is.
O'Brien says that the circumstances that led to his departure from NBC -- poor ratings for both Jay Leno's prime-time show and O'Brien's "Tonight Show," followed by an 11th-hour plan to move O'Brien back to midnight -- convinced him that his days at the network were numbered. "I think this relationship is going be toxic and maybe we just need to go our separate ways," he says, according to a teaser CBS distributed on Thursday. "That's really how it felt to me ... and I started to feel that I'm not sure these people even really want me here."
He also tells Kroft that had his and Leno's roles been reversed, he wouldn't have agreed to take the 11:30 p.m. timeslot back. "He went and took that show back and I think in a similar situation, if roles had been reversed, I know -- I know me, I wouldn't have done that," O'Brien says. "If I had surrendered 'The Tonight Show' and handed it over to somebody publicly and wished them well -- and then six months later. ... But that's me, you know. Everyone's got their own, you know, way of doing things."
The full interview will be on "60 Minutes" at 7 p.m. ET Sunday.
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Photo credit: CBS
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Leno ASKED to be released from his contract so he could go elsewhere, NBC refused!
NBC decided to dump the ratings challenged Conan , Leno did not demand this.
Only then Leno accepted doin the tonight show again ,not the other way around
Exactly. Leno only agreed to go back to The Tonight Show after NBC basically begged him to do it.
The "ratings challenged" Conan? Been paying much attention to Jay's ratings since he stole the show back?
Where can you find the ratings? They don't post them here.
Peter, Conan was only really "ratings challenged" BECAUSE OF LENO. Prior to Leno's primetime bomb Conan was doing quite well on "The Tonight Show". It was only when Leno's new show started (and did very poorly in the ratings) that Conan's ratings started to dive? Why? Because people either stopped tuning into Leno or changed the channel, then never flipped back to NBC for their local news or Conan's show. Leno was basically killing things for both local NBC news shows AND Conan.
TJ, I doubt NBC had to "beg" to hard to get Leno back.
Leno didn't HAVE to stay with NBC. He was NBC's employee and just as a person can do with any job, Leno could've quit/refused to stay (as Conan says he would've done had he been in Leno's shoes).
Then if Leno had done the honorable thing and quit like that and NBC still didn't want Conan to stay, they could've found a completely NEW host to replace Conan.
Either way, I don't really care... I'm a loyal Letterman fan & watch his show (but would watch Conan when Dave was a repeat). I hope Conan's new show makes Leno drop into 3rd place.
When Letterman retires I'd like to see Jerry Seinfeld replace him.
tvbythenumbers.com posts late night ratings daily.
They actually just released a chart comparing the ratings of Conan's first few weeks on "Tonight", Leno's first few weeks back, and Letterman's ratings.
Leno has been pulling almost exactly the same ratings that Conan was pulling. In fact, Conan's were a tad bit higher at times.
oh eff conan. why don't you just move on dude!
I saw a chart of the ratings and Leno's ratings aren't as high as his TS ratings were before, but he's still back to beating Letterman almost every week since he's been back. Conan wasn't beating Letterman, so Jay's back on top again (conan never was).
i believe Wikipedia cited the ratings (at least they were a couple weeks ago).
To Steven Anderson: unlike most employees outside of the entertainment business, Leno had a contract, with NBC. He was not free to simply quit, that is, unilaterally end his association with NBC; that would have been a breach of that contract.
Leno Still Tracking Conan’s Tonight Show Ratings
http://tvbythenumbers.com/2010/04/29/leno-still-tracking-conans-tonight-show-ratings-beats-letterman-again/50090
And for the love of god people (ie gmab), learn how to read a chart before you comment on it and make yourselves look silly