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Late Night Wars - Conan's last Tonight Show was TONIGHT a long time ago

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Liu Kang Baking A Pie said:
People don't see this realistically. If you were in a job where for two decades the guy on top kept staying the guy on top of you, even though he retired and you earned your promotion, you'd get the fuck out and find some new work. We all exist to strive to better ourselves all the time, and Conan was never going to get out from under this rock.

It's like Max on Max, except it's Jay on Conan and he's never getting off.
Yeah, I think the realistic analogy works.

You're in a job for 12 years as vice president. When it comes time to discuss pay, other companies are offering more money for the job of being president, your company says, hey, wait 5 years and you will get to be president. When 5 years comes along, you get a bump in pay and better duties, but the guy you thought you were placing is continually getting the better duties (time slot and guests), and before a year's passed they're asking you if you want to change your duties even more to accommodate the guy you thought you were supposed to replace. You see that you're still a vice-president or at best a weird co-president role. Do you stick around with the company that keeps pulling your chain and saying, "hold on, wait" or go with the company that says, "We want you! Be our president! We're also doing better financially than your current company!"
 
snesfreak said:
A great feature, everyone should use it.
I have. Thank you. But it doesn't work when people still keep quoting the moron.

I'll follow Coco wherever he winds up. I hope when he does, he takes every single person with him. The writers, the crew, the band, Andy. I want the whole package. And if they move back to NY, I hope he gets Joel back. I just fear that if they did move again, a lot of the crew would not want to uproot again after only a year.

Come on, Fox. Make it great. Once Conan is off TTS, I never have to watch it again... again. Also, now that Conan is going off, I can go back to watching Letterman. I forgot how much I used to love him. Makes me sad I missed his whole sex scandal.

I wish I could go back and warn Conan to get his contract tweaked. A "No following Leno" clause, the rights to all his characters, and a "must be on at 12:35" clause so NBC didn't have any loopholes to jump through.
 
Liu Kang Baking A Pie said:
People don't see this realistically. If you were in a job where for two decades the guy on top kept staying the guy on top of you, even though he retired and you earned your promotion, you'd get the fuck out and find some new work. We all exist to strive to better ourselves all the time, and Conan was never going to get out from under this rock.

It's like Max on Max, except it's Jay on Conan and he's never getting off.
Basically. Except NBC is watching :lol .

If NBC could move the tonight show to past midnight what would stop them from moving Conan back further to his old slot? What would happen to Fallon? They could just move Conan to no man's land and let his contract ride out. Either way NBC just screwed an employee of 17 years out of a well earned promotion.
 
quadriplegicjon said:
because the whole plan was to squeeze Conan back to 12:30. how long do you think Leno would have a 30 show? they would have extended that crap eventually. It would also screw over Fallon and the other guy.

That would seem silly to short cut Leno's show, just to reextend it. I doubt they had the entent of being subtle about it since that would just cost additional money and it would toss around advertisers more. If they really wanted to put Conan back at 12:30, that would have been the offer in the first place.

Or maybe I'm just thinking too much of the NBC execs.

numble said:
He only signed with NBC 5 years ago--when ABC and Fox were offering him big bucks--because NBC promised him he would get the Tonight Show and stop following Jay Leno. He stomached following the 10pm Jay, even though he knew it was an awful idea, but there's some point when you stop being loyal and go with the better offers are on the table.


I guess what I don't understand is why did the alarm go off now instead of when the Jay Leno show was announced? I always thought that O'Brien was compliant because Leno was to act as a lead in for the transitional period. If it's for that reason, his midnight offer slot seems better than the one he was given before.

I hope he has better offers, because people have been arguing in this topic that the result may lead to the end of O'Brien talk show career.
Liu Kang Baking A Pie said:
People don't see this realistically. If you were in a job where for two decades the guy on top kept staying the guy on top of you, even though he retired and you earned your promotion, you'd get the fuck out and find some new work. We all exist to strive to better ourselves all the time, and Conan was never going to get out from under this rock.

It's like Max on Max, except it's Jay on Conan and he's never getting off.

Everyone argued that O'Brien would eventually build up an audience equivalent to the current Leno and worthy of the Tonight show. Once that happens, NBC wouldn't need to keep Leno on a leash anymore.
 
I think the contract did stipulate that the show couldn't have been on any later than 12:05. I think I remember reading that.
 
DryEyeRelief said:
I guess what I don't understand is why did the alarm go off now instead of when the Jay Leno show was announced? I always thought that O'Brien was compliant because Leno was to act as a lead in for the transitional period. If it's for that reason, his midnight offer slot seems less worse than the one he was given before.

I hope he has better offers, because people have been arguing in this topic that the result may lead to the end of O'Brien talk show career.


Everyone argued that O'Brien would eventually build up an audience equivalent to the current Leno and worthy of the Tonight show. Once that happens, NBC wouldn't need to keep Leno on a leash anymore.
What are you stating in bold? Building an audience is pure speculation but history shows when NBC stuck with Leno they were paid off in spades. Will Conan have built an audience? Maybe, maybe not but that is all water under the bridge. What is done is done.

As for your previous questions, Conan always dreamed of getting TTS since he started and even modeled his show after Carson's in some aspects with his own twist of silly humor. Conan had his eye on the prize so when he was offered the job he had no problem turning down presumably better offers and waiting 5 years to get it. Sure NBC was doing bad but I don't think O'Brian even knew this would find some way to come back to bite him in the ass.

As for better offers, if there as an ounce of truth to the rumors flying around I am sure Conan will wind up somewhere. Now where he will wind up and more importantly when is the question.
 
DryEyeRelief said:
That would seem silly to short cut Leno's show, just to reextend it. I doubt they had the entent of being subtle about it since that would just cost additional money and it would toss around advertisers more. If they really wanted to put Conan back at 12:30, that would have been the offer in the first place.

Or maybe I'm just thinking too much of the NBC execs.


Unless they were hoping Conan would go for it and not realize the squeeze. They shortcut Leno's show, in order to place it back in the 11:30 time zone. It's only half an hour push back!

Then, half an hour is not enough for Leno! and look, he is getting amazing ratings!

either way, the whole thing is crap.
 
DryEyeRelief said:
I guess what I don't understand is why did the alarm go off now instead of when the Jay Leno show was announced?
Because jay chose to be a brett favre esque bitch and change his mind from the original plan.
 
wadsworth said:
I think the contract did stipulate that the show couldn't have been on any later than 12:05. I think I remember reading that.

I also think I remember reading that the 12.05 clause was for delays due to sports or breaking news, and NBC is trying to use that loophole to establish a permanent move. Obviously Conan's lawyers are saying that's a breach.
 
Raxus said:
Conan fails at Late Night.

By Conan O'Brian
Screw you I am not editing my post mine had a great punch line :(


I am totally jealous you beat me to the punch

Sensing a loss of momentum, Mr. O'Brien quickly launched into a "Top Ten" list, something he'd repeatedly told the press he would never do. The list was rife with misspellings, and three of the 10 entries read "joke to come." Moments later, he tried playfully flipping a pencil at a camera, but missed and struck a woman in the eye. "At least it wasn't me," quipped the first guest, the former Mets outfielder Vince Coleman. O'Brien burst into laughter at this distasteful comment. "Now we're cooking with gas," said the cocky new voice of "Late Night."

:lol
 
The man who trashed NBC in the NY Times for the whole Jay Leno/Conan O'Brien fiasco actually helped hatch the whole thing in the first place ... according to an email obtained by TMZ.

Former TV exec Fred Silverman was quoted this weekend saying the "Tonight Show" shakeup was "a corporate embarrassment" and that moving Leno back to 11:35 PM was a "Mickey Mouse scheme."

But TMZ has obtained an email sent by Silverman in 2008 to two top NBC execs in which Fred seemingly concocts the entire plan. He pitches the idea as, "Here's a way to solve your Jay Leno problem, improve your primetime ratings, save untold development costs and make a gazillion dollars at the same time." Did any of those things actually happen?

For all you TV newbies -- Fred Silverman is the only person to have ever been in charge of programming at three different networks. He was a legend at CBS and ABC ... but, ironically enough, failed miserably at NBC with such memorable disasters as "Supertrain" and "Hello, Larry."

It's one thing to play Monday Morning Quarterback, but it's a whole other thing when you called the plays.
http://www.tmz.com/2010/01/17/conan-obrien-jay-leno-tonight-show-fred-silverman/

email: http://tmz.vo.llnwd.net/o28/newsdesk/tmz_documents/0117_NBC_email.pdf
 
Mr. O'Brien's guests that evening also included the deputy director of New York's wastewater collection bureau, the editor of the NBC inter-office newsletter and a man who could eat oranges without getting any juice on his shirt (although he failed to do so on camera). Inexplicably, all the guests were introduced at the same time. Mr. O'Brien then asked each, in turn, his favorite color. To every answer, he snorted that the chosen color was "for girls."
:lol :lol :lol
 
Liu Kang Baking A Pie said:
People don't see this realistically. If you were in a job where for two decades the guy on top kept staying the guy on top of you, even though he retired and you earned your promotion, you'd get the fuck out and find some new work. We all exist to strive to better ourselves all the time, and Conan was never going to get out from under this rock.

Realistically?

You should also consider that you were ostensibly doing your dream job, are getting paid millions of dollars a year to do it, have a large staff that just relocated across the country and loses their jobs if you quit, and your boss is getting on in years and will probably have to retire for real within a few years.

Or, you can choose to walk, keep your pride, and get a $30 million check.

I doubt everyone is going to make the same decision given those choices.
 
NYTime piece

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/business/media/17nbc.html

“At the end of the day Jay at 10 o’clock didn’t work,” Mr. Zucker said, “and I take responsibility for that.”

Mr. Zucker said that it was during a phone call in the first week of January from Jeff Gaspin, NBC Universal’s head of entertainment, that he learned that the network’s affiliates were threatening to pre-empt the Leno show. “It was becoming tough to deal with,” Mr. Zucker said. “The pressure from the affiliate body was strong.”
 
*Wakes up*

Still having a bad dream, huh? :(

I'm starting to go from "mad that Conan got screwed" to "sad that Conan might not have another show at all" D:
 
numble said:

At the end of the interview in Mr. Zucker’s office, Steve Capus, the head of NBC News, spoke up strongly on behalf of his boss, saying the news media had blown the late-night ordeal “out of proportion,” especially, he said, in light of more important stories like the tragedy in Haiti. “He is paying a price that is so out of whack with what is happening here,” he said.

So fucking tasteless. Fuck that guy.
 
Lost Fragment said:
*Wakes up*

Still having a bad dream, huh? :(

I'm starting to go from "mad that Conan got screwed" to "sad that Conan might not have another show at all" D:
I'm pretty sure he start a new show this fall....
 
Raxus said:
Worst case scenario. We get to see 2 hosts, 1 slot.
54tb1i.gif
 
Pimpbaa said:
Late night now for me will be Letterman and Ferguson. Boycott NBC! I hope they burn to the ground.
Personally, even without boycotting I would hardly ever watch NBC latenight. Without Conan they now have, what is for me, the least appealing late night line up ever. I put Comedy Central, ABC, CBS and PBS (Charlie Rose and Tavis Smiley) way above what is left at NBC for late night talk shows.
 
AlternativeUlster said:
Give Leno Friday nights since I am usually out boozing on a Friday night.


Yeah, I wonder if that was talked about at all. I mean Conan used to only do 4 nights a week anyway, and Carson regularly had guest hosts during his run. Maybe they could have even expanded to Sunday and have Jay take that too.
 
FitzOfRage said:
Yeah, I wonder if that was talked about at all. I mean Conan used to only do 4 nights a week anyway, and Carson regularly had guest hosts during his run. Maybe they could have even expanded to Sunday and have Jay take that too.
The same reason you want it is the reason he wouldn't want it. Nobody watches TV on Friday nights.
 
Why is everyone freaking out about these clips being taken down from Hulu and YouTube? Why not just torrent all the Conan episodes? They're up everywhere and as far as I can tell it's a grey-area no-no zone because there's not any way to actually buy them once they've aired and gone.
 
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