But youre talking like you know everything going on. Youre talking like you know all of the stuff behind the scenes. You folks keep blaming Jay Leno etc with no real facts. Youre stating it to be true etc, but you dont know either. So that is why Im asking.
He appears to be a douche bc it does seem like all this has to do with him wanting his show and time slot back. No I don't know his side of it which is why I said he appears to be a douche. Not "he IS a douche".
haha who is worked up? And to answer your question - just look at Lauras post right above yours 'it seem like all this has to do with him wanting his show and time slot back' etc Laura, have you heard him asking for his show back?
To me it seems all about what it should be about - MONEY. Its business, ratings are down then they are losing money.
Incoming long post of my explanation about this controversy:
Leno was the host of The Tonight Show, an American Late-Night Talk Show franchise that was built most especially by Johnny Carson, airing on the station NBC. Carson hosted the show for ~30 years. In the early 90s, when Carson was retiring, NBC was trying to decide who to replace him with. It came down to Letterman, who is now on The Tonight Show's main competition, The Late Show airing on CBS, and Leno. Letterman was hosting The Tonight Show's follow-up at the time on NBC, Late Night. Leno was a stand-in for Carson on nights he couldn't do the show. When NBC executives were discussing the show, Letterman was considered to be the top choice to succeed Carson; I think even Carson himself requested it. But, NBC was considering Leno. Leno underhandedly eavesdropped on one of these conversations and managed to get the job, despite the apparent preference among those in the know. Many people, especially those in the business, think Leno essentially stabbed Letterman in the back (I think Letterman was even a big help in starting Leno's career, so it especially stung) and think Leno's a gigantic douche-nozzle with a tired routine. So, Letterman took an offer to host The Late Show, and Leno got The Tonight Show. Letterman was replaced with Conan O'Brien on Late Night, The Tonight Show's follow-up. For ~15 years, O'Brien sat in his chair on Late Night, doing his thing. In 2004, when his contract came up, O'Brien was receiving a lot of lucrative offers from other networks to host a late night talk-show that wouldn't be buried in the really wee hours of the night. It was his chance to be a big player. So, in order to keep him around and not have to compete with him, NBC offered him the Tonight Show in 5 years. So, Conan took their offer, and NBC let Leno know that they were asking him to retire in 5 years. Rumor has it that Leno wasn't happy, but he wasn't too upset and went along with it because he had a good run and is a company man through-and-through. NBC was betting in 5 years that Leno and Letterman would both we washed up (but especially Leno), and they'd have a jump on CBS to get young blood in. As it turned out, Leno was still performing strongly, and he didn't want to leave his job. But, a contract's a contract, and NBC didn't want Leno jumping ship and competing with The Tonight Show, so they offered him a prime-time variety show at 10PM every night (The Tonight Show airs at 11:35 every night, and these two shows sandwiched Local News, which runs from 11 to 11:35). O'Brien hosts The Tonight Show for 7 months, but his ratings aren't so hot. Leno is doing awfully as well, and the affiliates are about to axe his programming, which means NBC would not be able to make the little profit they already were making. So, NBC decided to cancel The Jay Leno Show. They didn't want Leno going off and competing with them, and apparently Leno didn't want to just retire, so they decided they'd stick him at 11:35, and bump The Tonight Show, which has traditionally aired right after local news. This didn't fly with O'Brien because: He was tired of playing second fiddle for Leno. He wasn't able to escape it even before, since Leno was on at 10, but especially now he was losing the best time slot in late night TV to follow the same guy he thought he would be rid of by now. O'Brien feels that NBC didn't give him a fair shake before playing around with his scheduling. He was only given 7 months to build an audience; for comparison, it took Leno 2 years, I believe. On top of that, his lead-in was terrible. Remember, the affiliates were revolting against NBC because Leno had terrible ratings and was a terrible lead-in for local news, which in turn drove low ratings for them. So, O'Brien's show had a small audience right before him, so fewer people staying tuned. The Tonight Show is an American Institution. Johnny Carson built the show out of nothing and made it an incredibly important player in American pop-culture. Part of that power was that people were still awake then; move it any later, and you just don't have the same wide audience anymore. Now, all of this would just be inside baseball, but it strikes at some themes that developed in that background information in the first paragraph. Many people argue that Leno should just retire. He had a long run, and he should give O'Brien a chance at his own show. A lot of this could be solved by him just retiring, or even requesting a different solution. But, instead, it looks like Leno is trying to weasel his way back into his old time slot, which is reminiscent of the battle in the 90s between Letterman and Leno. As I said, a lot of people in the business think poorly of Leno because of that, so the other late night talk-show hosts have been piling in Leno for not playing fair. So, you get Kimmel, who's leveling some particularly devastating attacks on Leno. I also get this feeling that a lot of people in the comedy business see Leno as a sell-out hack, who sacrificed his comedy in order to gain mass appeal to the least-common denominator and make a lot of money, at the cost of the art of comedy.
Leno: They asked him to retire in 5 years. He didn't want to but he had no choice but to agree if they weren't going to renew his contract. 5 years comes, he's still awesome, so instead of retiring completely he agrees to a shitty 10:00 time slot. His ratings drop, and the network keeps saying he can do his old show better than Conan and while he can't have his old show back, he can have his time slot back...the one that he didn't want to leave in the first place. Of course, he says yes.
Conan: He's up and coming, he's getting awesome job offers, but he's promised his dream job in 5 years. He decides to wait it out and take his dream job. 5 years comes, he gets the job, but his ratings aren't so hot. He hasn't been given much of a fair chance, but the company he works for insists that his show get moved to a different time. He protests because 1) He was already at a later time, that's getting demoted. And 2) The Tonight show has ALWAYS come on at 11:35, it's part of the tradition. So he's been turning down all of these awesome job offers to take his dream job, just to have it swept from under his feet after less than a year.
-good to see someone taller than conan. -first second of the video conan is rocking out and it made me burst out in laughter. -good call on sterns part. -leno is a creep for hiding in closets.
Man his last show was great. That speech he made at the end was perfect. He's so humble. Then he goes and tears it up on the guitar. Good stuff. If you all haven't seen it, check it out on nbc.com