Last time I mentioned Jay Leno, it was a post the day after his first prime time show. I lamented how poor the production was and how disappointed I was in the show's content and flow. (Recall this was the show where Kanye West appeared the night after his stalking of Taylor Swift and Jay didn't have the balls to really get into the whole matter.)
Jay looked and sounded like a big puss last night as he put his spin on this whole NBC programming mess. The blame for this entire debacle lays at the feed of Jeff Zucker, the network president, pictured at right. Another moronic move that took the number one prime time network to number three — putting a lame-ass prime time show with Leno at the helm and basically killing some of the network gold in those time slots. Well if folks bail the poor prime time programming, they don't stick around for local news, which pisses of the affiliates. If they don't watch the local news, then guess what, they don't stick around for Conan and The Tonight Show.
But what Jay said last night in his spin effort was sickening. His attempt to appeal to the common guy on the street, as though he was an innocent participant in this fiasco. And instead of bowing out and passing the baton on to Conan,as he said would do back in 2005 when he first announced his decision to retire and pursue other interests, he hoses Conan by agreeing to go back to his former show. He should have told NBC to Zuck off.
Leno made mention of his number one rated show for 12 years, passing the baton to Conan, making deals on a handshake, blah, blah, blah. Let's be real Jay — you inherited the number one time slot from Johnny. Secondly, you weren't number one the entire 12-year run of your show — I recall Letterman's reign at the top for a portion of that time. You simply are not "the regular guy" you make yourself out to be.
Conan is a different sort of host with a different following. Jay attracts yesterday's audience; Conan attracts tomorrow's audience. If NBC had a clue, they'd know this and stick with their original plan to make Conan their host of the future. I like Conan because his brand of humor is edgier (maybe 'odder' is more appropriate) and Leno is sort of lame as he reads his monologue from the cue cards.
Don't cry for me, I'm a Letterman fan anyway. I actually liked when Conan was on later in the evening because I got to catch both he and Letterman. But now, at 50, I barely make it half way through Dave's show. Too bad for NBC as it will take quite a while to fix what it took less than 3 months to screw up.
I Got Issues* 
What is wrong with you people? If Conan was getting good enough ratings, they would have never replaced him. To me, the whole Conan temper tantrum is sour grapes. He had a chance and he didn’t succeed. NBC had to make a decision and they went back to the man who left the No.1 rated late night show to Conan in the first place. It was Conan who couldn’t keep it going. Now, if Conan hadn’t of bitten the hand that fed him, he could have continued his program at a later time, but he apparently got some bad advice from people who sound a lot like you. He made a foolish stand and now he is gone. I doubt we will even remember his name in a few years. Conan who?
P.S. Neither one were is good as Johnny as far as I am concerned.
Easy fft, you’re showing your age. It’s not that Conan is no good, it’s just that you don’t get him. His target audience isn’t you or me — I’m 50 — it’s the younger generation. But don’t get me wrong, the more I’ve watched him, the more I like him. Anyway, let’s get back to your argument — sorry my friend but I think you have it wrong. Conan’s numbers were off in the beginning as people got used to the change from Jay to Conan — and his audience needed to find him in his new time slot. Then when Leno took over at 10:00 PM — more people bailed on NBC. And when Leno was over, those viewers did not come back to the network for nightly news. And if they’re not watching NBC network news, they’re not sticking around for Conan. So the failed experiment called the Jay Leno Show exaserbated the Conan’s poor ratings. So don’t be short-sighted — O’Brien was finding his footing and it was Jay Leno who sucked, and he should have stepped aside.