The only way I will watch TTS again is if NBC names Joel McHale or Steve Carell as the host.

so considering Team Leno is again playing the role of the villian, and that agent, Helen, is long gone, what does that tell you about Leno? Maybe people will start to realize Jay Leno isn’t, hasn’t, nor ever will be such a “nice guy”. This is the same guy who ripped off Howard day after day, and even swiped Stuttering John without asking Howard first.

…I now officially and irrevocably hate Sweden, Bud Light, Times Square, the Super Bowl, Belgium, and Conan O’Brien and all his mindless zombie fans, and dedicate a popular song by the All-American Rejects to them…

…I already hated Jeff Zucker and his famous pig, and already sing the theme from “Green Acres” in his (dis)honour (“…Jeff Zucker is a ___________ing pig…”)…

…mind you, I think Jay reran lots of his monologue jokes, and couldn’t hold a candle to Bob Newhart or Jeff Foxworthy – but I could watch him, or invite him to dinner. I wouldn’t invite Dave, Jimmy, Conan, Craig, or Carson, even if I was given permission to feed them arsenic-laced baklava while wearing a Gucci balaclava designed by Betty Suarez…

…but I would easily prefer it if Ted Koppel or Charles Osgood dropped by for a nice dinner – or, for that matter, George Clooney – I would get my choice of a female guest if my wife gets Clooney – perhaps someone who was on a top rated TV show that could also teach me to cook tandoori

I feel torn, FYI, because I love my NBC Thursday night comedy lineup. But how can I love a network that cancelled Southland because Chinzilla took up too much room, only to shitcan him as well. So yeah, FOX bending NBC over, lubeless, would be pure joy.

And if Southland pulled in some good numbers (pleasepleasepleaseplease…eh, I couldn’t be that lucky), it would be the icing on the cake. Sigh….

NBC is the one that made the move so the blame is on them.

Conan – bravo I salute you standing up and saying wait a minute..I’m not a Zucker man.. I’m a professional who loves his job and respects it’s history..

Jay – you showed the world that the chin has nothing left to say..Except maybe “Check PLEASE”..

Fallon – Is a frat house drinking game and not much more…

I myself am crazy about Lopez Tonight..That essay is funny..

BTW that was a joke it’s, Ese ..Geez your spanish is bad ..

If only the Packers loved Brett this much, when he wanted his “starting spot” back! But unlike Jay Leno, Brett Favre knew forcing his way back in was just going to hurt everybody, so he left for the Vikings. If Leno had any class, he would do the same thing. it’s Conan’s spot now, stop trying to horn in. This is the equivalent of if Brett Favre went 4-12 for the Vikings and then wanted to come back to the Packers to play. No way Jay.

Conan will easily find work on another network without a doubt. FOX finally has their man to run late nights. I always saw Conan moving to FOX one day and now I think its going to happen.

On the other side, Jay deserves to stay on air if he wants to air it. Jay didn’t fail, NBC failed. The move shouldn’t never been made in the first place but then Jimmy would’ve had to wait for his opportunity. Hopefully all of this will be over soon and everybody will be happy.

And for NBC, this is a real SNAFU. Situation Normal, All F(ouled) Up.

I think there should be a poll showing what Conan’s viewers are going to do, I’d be interested in what they have to say.

That being said, I think Conan should have been left alone and allowed to continue. But NBC for whatever reason feels differently. And we know what programming geniuses they are.

Jon thanks for identifying yourself as a totally clueless, hateful, asshole.

The rush is trying to get the affiliates to approve the sale of the controlling interest in NBC to Comcast. That happens at the end of this month. It’s an attempt at a carrot. Comcast is cable and represents a very real and existential threat to any affiliate with two-cents worth of a brain.

All that said I believe the moron’s at NBC believe this is a fair compromise but all they are doing is looking at 2 individual people. If they were real astute forward thinking TV executives, they would do what’s best for NBC in the long run and not worry about who goes where. I believe they should have let Jay leave – so goto ABC. What was best for NBC at the time. The talk show idea was terrible.

In the end the winnder in all this is Letterman.

Tom Shales is the television critic for the Washington Post, and he may very well be an idiot.

I just cited his comment today to show I am not the only one who thinks Leno might be a backstabber.

It is also not nonsense to suggest that Jay’s failure at 10 o’clock is the reason for all this sudden turnoil.

Jeff Gaspin himself said he made the decision because of a potential affiliate revolt. He even said if it were only one or two affiliates he would have stuck with Jay longer, but that he had the sense that it was going to be a real problem.

This is in fact an astonishing failure. Think about it. Multiple NBC affiliates were going to refuse to air Leno if NBC didn’t pull the plug. This is something that just does not happen in prime time.

Imagine if you will if ABC affiliates were threatening not to air network prime time programming if ABC didn’t pull the forgotten (which now routinely loses to Leno). The imagine if ABC caved and cancelled Castle too so Christian Slater could have another show.

Yes, Conan had lost a substantial portion of the Tonight show audience (I’m not arguing he was a success). BUT no one was calling for his head. If Leno were not such a catastrophic failure that affiliates were seriously going to pre-empt portions of the prime time lineup, NBC would give Conan time to regain an audience (just like they did for Jay in the early 90′s) especially with the likelihood of Letterman’s retirement ater 2012.

My best guess is the pay outs on Jay’s contract are more significant than the payouts on Conan’s. Or perhaps, wrongheadedly the network thought they would be able to placate Conan until Jay retired for real.

Regardless, the 10 o’clock Leno show was an abject failure, and when Jay gave the B&C interview he KNEW it would never succeed. That’s why he unexpectedly suggested he would be happy to return to 11:35 (nevermind that someone else already had the job). Maybe you see this don’t see any of this as backstabbing (or failure), I do and I’m not alone.

In a time when all of NBC’s ratings are down, they can’t really blame anyone but themselves. But a move like this is just going to make people have less respect for them and start watching other networks. TJLS has already taken up enough precious prime time space that could have been used for other programming. And while I don’t think he should be forced to retire, NBC has already seen that rearranging their entire schedule to accommodate him doesn’t work. The most respectable thing to do would be to keep Conan at 11:35 and let him make the show he wants to make (I think most people will agree that he doesn’t feel nearly as in control of this show as he did Late Night) and if they want to do some huge restructuring wait until after the fall season or even summer.

LOL, yeah, basically Jay had one joke re: Lewinskygate, which he would repeat in different ways. but the punchline was almost always the same.

Carson 1990
“In the fourth quarter of 1990, Carson averaged a 5.6 national Nielsen rating”

Leno 1992
“had a 4.4 rating and a 13-percent share”

22% drop

Of course NBC didn’t behave with honor when it came to Letterman. But I don’t think that should give them a pass now with, “Oh, that’s just NBC being NBC.” They, and Leno, can still get blamed for their behavior. And Conan should definitely get as far away from them as possible.

As for Conan not getting a chance compared to Jay not getting a chance…

Conan isn’t in first place, but he isn’t exactly get trounced. TJLS is doing abysmally and getting destroyed by re-runs of other shows. There’s only so much leeway and room to grow a person deserves. Especially when they’re on 5 days a week at 10PM primetime.

Because when Johnny Carson retired he retired, he didn’t have a duplicate show on an hour earlier than Leno. Leno was given a chance to succeed or fail on his own and it took him almost 2 years to beat Letterman. Conan hasn’t been given that chance. He had a few months and then Leno was there from September on, undercutting him.

Probably not, not if he sticks with the format of The Tonight Show. That just did not work at all for him. Conan is a funny guy though, and if he came up with a late night show that was a little different (instead of trying to beat Leno and Letterman at their own games), I think he could be really successful.

Dave reportedly has some great jokes about the situation on tonight’s show. I can’t wait.

Face it TV is not the same. They don’t give shows years to gain an audience anymore.

And now I have to ask after watching Jay’s monologue from last night. He said NBC fired him from the Tonight show and he’s been fired again. Ok now that rubbed me the wrong way. So he never gracefully accepted his fate. Has he always resented what NBC did with Conan? That’s what it sounds like which if I were him I’d leave. NBC is a cesspool and Conan should go too.

And Jennifer while I agree people should behave with honor, did NBC behave with honor back with Letterman. So why are any of these people surprised. It’s lousy and callous and they should both leave.

From what I remember, they were decent. He managed to hold most of Carson’s viewers. HOWEVER… things were different then. There was no direct competition from the other big nets. CBS aired “Crimetime after Primetime” (Canadian imported hourlong crime series). ABC had (and still has) “Nightline” (news show). FOX had no option at all (they haven’t been in the late night game since their first few season with Joan Rivers). The only serious competition to Jay was Arsenio Hall, who had a syndicated talk show.

A year later, when Letterman bolted to CBS to compete against Jay, he gave Jay serious competition and actually beat Jay regularly in the ratings for almost two years.

No, Johnny Carson was the King of Late Night. Jay is, and always will be, just a pretender to his throne.

Hmm… and “Headlines”, “Jaywalking” and the “Green Car Challenge” leaves you in stitches from laughing so hard?!

Scratching head. Yeah, that makes no sense. Okay, I don’t like X and X show, so in protest, I’m not going to watch the show that is on before it?!

I think the whole concept of lead out is somewhat antiquated to the younger generation, but the old school Nielsen viewing TV nets still believe in the concept. In the old days, before remote controls, cable and “zapping”, people would leave the channel on to the same channel. If they watched NBC at 10, they’d watch the local NBC affiliate news at 11. Okay, this wasn’t true of 100% of the people as some of you will say i don’t do that, but statistically, a large percent of people do. I’m guessing older folks. Those are the viewers that have lapsed thanks to “The Jay Leno Show” who weren’t watching the local affiliates newscasts. Affiliates say they’ve lost up to 30% of viewers. I imagine that at least 25% of those are the people I described who just leave the channel on. As for viewers who boycott shows that come on BEFORE shows they don’t like, I can only say IF anyone does that, they are in the small minority, like 1-2% tops.

Is this true? Did Leno really say this? I know it’s a joke, but what an arse-hole. He just doesn’t get it. He gave up the Tonight Show post (willing or not). It’s Conan’s now, leave him alone. Retire, you old troll!

I guess that Konan viewers have no sense of humor…
They go more for the 14 year old boy jokes and/or frat jokes concerning masturbating bears…
No that’s funny.

I agree…this is what I do…

Jeff

Maybe Jay will get struck by lightning sooner or some other act of God and Conan won’t have to wait so long.