It’s always interesting when an organization doesn’t learn from its mistakes. In the early 1990s, NBC tried to simultaneously please two late-night talk show hosts to no avail: Jay Leno stayed and David Letterman jumped to CBS. Now, almost twenty years later, NBC is again trying to find a way to keep Leno and his successor, Conan O’Brien, together.Reports say NBC will abandon its brief experiment placing Leno at the head of a 10 p.m. (eastern time) nightly show and return him to his old position at 11:35 p.m.; O’Brien’s “Tonight Show” would move to 12:05 a.m. (O’Brien may reject the proposal and walkaway from NBC altogether.) Like most compromises, this will please nobody.
Well, almost nobody. The television elites are ecstatic; Leno’s retreat from prime-time opens up five hours worth of time that can be filled with more expensive programming. Mary McNamara gloats in the Los Angeles Times:
[T]he 10 o’clock hour will once again be back in the hands of writers, directors and actors, not to mention all the ancillary crew involved in hourlong drama. There’s a reason dramas are more expensive to produce than the Leno show — they employ more people. Which NBC seems to have forgotten is a good thing, helpful, you know, to the local economy.
Not only did retail sales rebound a bit this Christmas, but the fall season proved that neither comedy nor hourlong drama is dead. Certainly it will be nice to have NBC back in the game, touching too, just as John Wells, who gave the network the iconic “ER,” settles into his new role as president of the Writers Guild where now, perhaps, a few more scribblers will be able to qualify for health insurance.
And that’s really what’s important here: Creating jobs for unionized writers. Nevermind that the Writers Guild strike two years ago indirectly led NBC to attempt its Leno-at-10 experiment. You see, as the guild system continues to drive up production costs – without providing any countervailing benefits to producers and networks – distributors like NBC sometimes panic and try stupid things like “The Jay Leno Show.”
It doesn’t matter whether NBC produces shows anyone wants to watch. It matters that those five precious hours per week support five unionized writing and production crews. Five bad shows are better than one bad show. The more bad shows produced, the more power the guilds have to extract even higher prices – under threat of state-sanctioned strikes – during the next round of contract “negotiations.”
Of course, then the networks may panic and try to cut costs again. As I said, it’s always interesting when an organization doesn’t learn from its mistakes.
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You don’t see the humor in all this?! I find it hilarious that a network can’t seem to pull it’s act together after all these years.
I’m surprised that Americans haven’t been screaming for something substantive after all these years, IMHO television shows have regressed over the years.
The only semi-decent show out there that is actually praise-worthy is Dexter on Showtime.
Monica Lewinski is so 15 years ago, Leno.
I want more Conan.
And yet NBC has been giving a timeslot to the sloppy and pathetic “Last Call with Carson Daly” for how long now?
Everybody got to learn the true value of these “writers” during their infamous strike. I firmly believe O’Brien’s finest shows were those done during the writer’s strike where he basically had to ad-lib the whole thing.
I couldn’t imagine a cushier job than being a writer for a tedious and repetitive show like Letterman. Let’s just recycle that list nonsense ad nauseum.
The U.S. should take a page out of the UK’s TV book. Past 10pm there are hilarious celebrity panel shows that are unmoderated and uncensored.
The closest thing the US has are “The Daily Show” and “Colbert Report” which, while being very sharp, can also be repetitious and juvenile. They also only run for about 18 minutes each.
I’d kill for an actually-adult late night show that runs for an hour with limited commercial interruption (a la Charlie Rose) and mixes serious interviews/commentary with off-beat humor and a bit of stand-up.
Basically, can we have the LvMI forums on TV?
(1) NBC should have given The Tonight Show to Letterman, since Letterman was actually funny.
(2) NBC should never have given Leno The Jay Leno Show, since Leno is not actually funny.
(3) NBC should not take away The Tonight Show from O’Brien, since O’Brien is actually funny.
(4) NBC should put Richter back on the couch right next to O’Brien, because I miss the good ol’ days when Richter was right next to O’Brien on the couch, and Richter is actually funny.
(5) If NBC wants to move Leno back to a later time, they should give him Late Night, since Jimmy Fallon, it seems from what little I’ve seen, has unfortunately ceased to be funny.
But, then again, I hardly ever watch TV anymore, and I have seen extremely little of the late night talk shows in recent years, so what do I know? Perhaps they’ve all become unfunny, for all I know.
Alex
NBC has been at the forefront of cultural devolution and pro-state policies for many years. Hopefully, NBC will go bankrupt and the valuable Manhattan real estate that it occupies will be put to better use.
Alexander -
Your points are interesting, but it seems to me the question isn’t who is “funnier” then whom, but who generates the most revenue for NBC. Leno was outperforming Letterman. O’Brien is not. That’s really the issue.
I tend to share your preferences over who is “funnier,” but NBC’s duty is to make the right business decisions for its shareholders. It clearly did not do so in this instance.
Gaurav – I do not hope for such a fate for NBC, as they are a perfect candidate for a “too big to fail” institution. Imagine if GE decided that running advertisement-supported TV wasn’t profitable: Network heads, newscasters both national and local, and even comedic actors would be up in arms about “preserving free TV for the edutainment of the people.” How else could people possibly be informed of the happening in their surroundings?
NBC is best as a floundering, easily identifiable patsy whose biggest (non government) ad accounts are Gold-bond and Head-on.
| “It’s always interesting when an organization doesn’t learn from its mistakes” |
… ‘organizations’ don’t learn or make mistakes — only individuals do.
We don’t know exactly how NBC executives made/make programming decisions, but they are merely corporate businessmen trying to profitably sell a retail product.
They likely use mixed criteria of sales data history, audience research, personal experience & intuition. If they fail, there are consequences… and rewards if they succeed.
Of course, the valuable NBC basic broadcast privilege is protected by the government (FCC) — so NBC is very unlikely to go out of business entirely, even if poorly managed.
Late night talk/entertainment programs are relatively cheap to produce and used to be very profitable — but mainstream network TV faces much new competition from nimble cable & internet providers. Dinosaur network executives (Jeff Zucker/NBC) seem to be lagging.
As to the specific Leno/Conan issue… IMHO Leno’s previous Tonight Show program/time-slot was the best out there in that genre; however, the show format changes for 10PM were all negative… and the ratings show it. Conan is likeable but spastic and unfunny; he’s a great guest on other shows — but clearly can’t routinely deliver as top banana. Letterman is coasting.. long past his heyday and has been phoning-in the show for 10 years. Fallon is over his head, in same category as Conan. Kimmel is very good at it — but clicks with the young demographic only. Ferguson is interesting but quirky.. without wide audience appeal. Daly is pathetic.
You guys actually watch that stuff?
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