Go Team Coco
 

Tonight's Conan's final night as host of the Tonight Show. You have to wonder at this point what NBC is thinking. The have to know that they're in a total lose-lose situation. Conan's popularity just jumped, and if Leno's wasn't already considered in the tank, it's floating around in there now. I would be shocked if he returns to 11:30 and doesn't fail as badly as, or worse than, he has at 10:00.

Meanwhile, I can't wait to see what Coco ends up doing. If I caught what he said on last night's show correctly, the severance deal he signed prohibits him from doing anything until September. Not sure if that includes online content. Because if he's smart (and he seems to be) he'll be all over YouTube et. al come Monday morning. My real hope is that he'll get to work coming up with something that's not yet another "monologue-sketch-interview-interview-musical guest" cookie cutter show that he can sell to another network. Probably a pipe dream, but I think he's got the momentum to pull it off.

I'll be watching tonight, should be fun. I'm mostly hoping he lays into Hanks for starting the whole "Coco" thing :D

Do you know just how long it took me to figure out that all the references to Coco were about Conan? I was trying to figure out why everyone on FB was talking about Coco Chanel.

One thing not often mentioned is that just many people were watching Jay Leno at 10pm as had been at 11:35, that's just not a good number for 10pm.

But back at 11:35 Leno can lose 40% of the audience he had before leaving The Tonight Show and he'd still be doing better than Conan has been doing. To the extent that I'm picking sides, it is in favor of Conan but he was stinking things up to an extent not explainable by poor lead in. And even with all the scandal his ratings last week were still below Leno's average as host. This week being known to be the last may have driven it up more.

Time may have fixed things but it is only in late night that you get to lose to reruns on the other networks and even have a hope of being given time.

If he sticks with the format I hope he goes to cable rather than Fox. He's a niche product and to be able to pull satisfactory numbers he needs to go somewhere that appreciates niche audiences or go back after midnight.

But as much as I like the idea of Conan O'Brien's style I never actually watched it regularly and I doubt that'll change wherever he goes.

I was certainly watching the Tonight Show more than ever with Conan at the helm (and by "more than ever" I mean "at all").

I think a large chunk of Conan's struggles were the result of a combination of the traditional drag of a poor lead in and the fact that it was specifically Leno that was providing that poor lead in. When Carson left and Leno took over there were lots of Carson fans that were not interested in seeing Leno...but they were also quite used to watching something at 11:30 on NBC in the form of a late show. So some portion of them watched anyway out of habit, which softened the inevitable drop off. Whereas with NBC slapping Leno on at 10PM, that segment that would have otherwise stuck around at 11:30 for whoever took it over were more likely to say, "screw it, I'm sticking with what I know" and just watch Leno at 10 instead.

So strip away the habitual late night watchers AND reduce the overall # of people watching the network at all, and you've got a recipe for disaster. Does it entirely account for it? Who knows, maybe he would have still failed even if given the best possible opportunity. But while success in a good situation isn't guaranteed, failure in a bad situation pretty much is, and that's what they gave him.

While Coco did in fact get a bump, I know I watched last night for the first second time ever, I'm not sure it will stay with him in the long run. I was only watching to see the train wreck. Now that that's happened I doubt I'll be back when he makes it to Fox or wherever.

I do hope he keeps "Speedy" The Bugatti Veyron Mouse. That was a great character who was never fully developed. Still, I guess Speedy is the property of NBC now. Perhaps they will do a spin-off show. Something like a Knight Rider 2008 but with charm rather than suckieness.

"There's been some outrage on the internet that we're wasting all this money...IT'S NOT REAL! Ok, just want to make that clear." --Conan

Leno's career better not survive this. It's time for him to retire to his garage. Even if one decides he is funnier or that Conan sucks, Leno is the one who signed on to steal his show back. In case you haven't seen it - Leno in 2004. Too bad he didn't keep up what he said here. This whole thing could have been far more dignified.

So what happens after Leno is gone (which should be soon)? Who hosts the Tonight Show? Please don't say Jimmy Fallon...he needs at least another decade of ripening before even being considered.

Well, pretty much my thoughts exactly.

I think Conan also has a more niche audience. I'm not a habitual watcher, but when watching live programming, I'm more likely to turn to Conan than just about anyone, as his humor suits me.

That and I just don't think NBC is going to see a jump when Leno comes back to 11:35. Maybe I'm wrong...

Poor Jimmy, he falls flat so many times. Loved the beginning of his show last night, though. He definitely needs time.

Leno, yeah, hey, he can go and do an auto show like that guy who who buys/repairs/sells cars at auction. Leno

I had watched Carson, Leno, and when Conan came on, I actually watched him more than Leno because of the time slot. I really enjoyed his humor. I like Leno but this does leave very bad feelings. Why couldn't he retire or get a one night a week show? Leave Conan to build his audience?

When he sprayed cavier on the Picasso, I knew it was a joke. Before that, I wasn't so sure. :blush:

His 'speech' to NBC and the fans at the end was great. I love how he addressed the young people not to be cynical.

I just got through watching the final episode. I admit I expected a train wreck, but instead was pleasantly surprised by a lot more class than I anticipated.

Personally, I think Leno is taking FAR more heat for this situation than he deserves.

I think he's taking exactly the amount of heat he deserves. First off, he's not even taking most of the heat. Most of it is being aimed at NBC. They're the ones who lacked the fortitude a year ago to say to Leno, "No, we're not going to give in to your begging just because you suddenly regret the deal you agreed to 5 years ago. You were given the opportunity to make a clean takeover of the Tonight Show from Carson, we're going to give Conan the same opportunity." Instead they caved to his whining and pretty much guaranteed failure for Conan. And their response is to punish Conan for it.

But there is still the fact that NBC wouldn't have even been in position to make those mistakes had Leno not been begging them to do it. He made a deal and then regretted his decision. Instead of doing the respectful thing, wishing Conan luck and moving on, he wedged his way back in to undermine Conan. Either he's incredibly naive to have thought that him being on at 10 would be a boon to Conan, or he just didn't care in the least whether Conan succeeded or not. So yeah, I think he deserves the heat he's getting.

I am one of the rare [here] viewers who liked Leno and rarely watched Conan at either time slot. I tuned in to see the trainwreck.

But Leno made a huge deal about leaving the Tonight Show for his 10pm experiment and if it failed he was going to retire. Instead of the "handshake deal", he has an iron-clad contract that says that he is to be paid a ridiculous amount of money or moved back to 11:35.

I don't understand what went down with affiliates threatening to pull out because their 11pm news is losing viewers. If they are NBC affiliates wtf would they air.

On one hand I'm glad Leno is gone from 10pm (I never watched him there) and hopefully there will be some actual programming instead of reality crap (hey, a gal can dream). On the other Conan got screwed.

I'm bummed he wasn't actually wasting the Tonight Show budget.

My DVR cut off near the end of Freebird, but at least up to that point I thought it a bit essentially know acknowledgment/involvement was given to Max Weinberg.

La Bamba got more notice.

It's been like that for a while. Max was gone for a LOT of the 7 month run, La Bamba really became the focal point of the band.

I know, but still, 18 years with Conan and all that.

I'm not going to lead protests or cry for Weinberg, it just seemed and odd slight to me.

Given the option to watch either Leno or Conan, I'd watch Letterman and Ferguson.

:D

I never thought Leno was funny. And, to me, I like The Simpsons episodes that Conan had involvement with but I've never been a big fan of his show.

I love Ferguson!!

I rather enjoyed the 10:00, 11:35, 12:30ish line up. I got a lot of laughs out of it. Without having to choose.

Conan + awesome parting speech - tie + guitar + all around classiness = massive crush.

Oh yes, definitely the classiness

Vomitting Kermit

The Horny Manatee


And of course, masturbating bear.

On the last show and how the situation was handled? Class.

I'm a clear Conan fan, though I didn't often stay up late enough to watch his Tonight Show. I always enjoyed it whenever I saw it. I loved his final episode, and his speech at the end really hit something close to home - I actually cried. He was such an incredible class act and I am sure his career will continue in a good direction (and that I'll be watching.)

LOL. A high school acquaintance overdubbed Leno's "Get Back" ad with a more fitting song. It's apparently gone viral, even got picked up by HuffPo.

I'm a creep

For those who don't know, Conan now has a Twitter feed.

.

I bet NBC didn't say anything about not being allowed to Twitter.

Seeing as he's twittering, I don't think anyone will bet against you.

The concept of my post worked much better in my brain...

According to Today in LA NBC wants to forget the Conan O'Brien debacle and return to 2009 where Leno was #1 in late night.

Bastards.

I view every guest on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno as a Benedict Arnold. First up: Jamie Foxx

So, NBC was making money with Leno and wasn't making as much with Conan (me making a presumption based on anecdotal information - I will retract should someone provide facts to the contrary), not to mention the flack they were getting from the affiliates. They want to return to making more money. How does this make them bastards?

Financially speaking, dropping Leno for O'Brien was a mistake. They are correcting the mistake. I doubt that anybody at NBC WANTED things to turn out the way they did for Conan, but sometimes, difficult decisions need to be made.

The affiliates complained about the lead in, i.e. the crappy Leno comedy hour at 10.

Leno is boring and a smug a-hole. I hope he fails.

Except Leno's ratings were the same as the rating he was getting at 11:30, which lead the time slot. They were only bad in the context of a 10PM slot.

Given the situation they were in at the beginning of the year, and the way the contracts were written, NBC had very valid business reasons to make the move at the time they made it. The asshole thing they did happened long long before, by promising Conan a chance at the Tonight Show and then totally undercutting his odds of succeeding by caving to Jay Leno's whining, thus all but guaranteeing they'd put themselves in the position they found themselves in. I don't think the issue was as much not enough people watching Leno to lead into the news->Conan. I think the issue was too many people who were used to Leno just deciding to keep watching Leno and not give Conan a chance. Had the option to keep watching Leno not been there, Conan would have maintained some percentage of that audience and gotten a much better start than he did.

So yeah, by the numbers Leno was a clear better business investment at 11:30 than Conan...but only because NBC set it up so that result was all but inevitable. Had Johnny Carson been moved to 10 when Leno started hosting the Tonight Show, I guarantee Leno would have never done as well as he did.

Worth repeating.

It's how they said it. They literally said they wanted to forget the debacle and return to 2009 where Leno was #1 in late night. It was a douchebag thing to say/write and completely insulting to Conan, his fans, staff, anyone with half a brain.

Going only on what I am reading in this thread, I disagree. If I were a shareholder, I would AGREE with their statements (as presented here).

Overall, the whole situation was a debacle. I don't read into it that it was a put down of Conan and his staff - I read it that the whole situation (all parts of it) was a clusterf**k with no real winners

I'll rephrase. It was really really low klass. They could have just said that Leno was coming back tonight blah blah blah.

I am a shareholder, and I still think it's crap. Hopefully soon we will dump all this on Comcast. Good riddance.

Depending on how you look at the number Leno had either really good or really bad ratings last night.

The Good Interpretation
45% increase over Conan's average viewers
14% higher than Leno was getting on average in the first quarter last year
Nearly double Letterman's numbers for the night.

The Bad Interpreatation
56% lower than Conan's debut, and that's with the benefit of NBC's fairly strong numbers coming off the Olympics, and without the handicap that Conan had with his debut coming in what's considered "off" season.

I'm looking at that and thinking NBC execs are shaking in their boots. Massive media coverage of the situation, big network exposure with the Olympics, coming off of sweeps month...and all Leno can muster is a 14% bump over his average? It's likely to only be going down from here as the hype surrounding the controversy and premier fade.

I cannot WAIT until he goes down in flames. :evil:

Conan O'Brien Live

Very little detail other than the fact that Tickemaster has a listing for a Conan O'Brien show in Phoenix, AZ, April 30 at the Doge Theater. Tickets go on sale March 8 priced $36.50-$76.50.

Conan is now following one person on twitter, as of about noon yesterday. She's a totally random person that he contacted prior and offered this bizarre honor. She had 3 followers, and now she has 12,800 (and it continues to skyrocket), because was brand new to twitter so it's not like she had a history that would have been ugly to put under the spotlight. She's already doing interviews and already having free stuff thrown at her.

If a celebrity came to you offering to do this to you, would you go for it? I'd be pretty leery of the intrusion.

Depends who it is, but considering I get anxiety if the jumbotron cameras come by way, I wasn't thrilled about being on the news during the prop8 protests, my Facebook only recently became searchable by name and is completely private to those not on my friends list and my Twitter account is locked probably not.

I think it's really awesome that Conan went from "following no one" to "following who he wants".

Andy tells it straight. Well, as straight as someone who still wants to get a job in the industry can.

Details of Conan's Shocking TBS Deal Revealed

This story

The referenced LA Times article

Another article mentioned that Conan was going to refuse the deal because he saw it as doing to Lopez what NBC had done to him. But Lopez himself called Conan and talked him into it.

Not that I watched him much anyway, but that slot pretty much guarantees I never will. If I'm watching TV at 11pm, then I'm watching the Daily Show.

He looked old.