By: Billy Beerslugger
I know this story is a little old but given I took the entire BeerSlugger.com team to Costa Rica for the month of January and we couldn’t get a decent wi-fi signal, this is as good a time as any to weigh in on the subject.
Firstly, I can’t stand Jay Leno, never could, never will. Maybe he’s it’s his writers fault for the crappy, predictable jokes he comes out with nightly. Maybe he’s just too corporate, maybe he’s on the West Coast and I’m on the East Coast, it really doesn’t matter. I have always been a Letterman guy myself and even though he can be annoying at times, the things he can pull off on his show, the comedic risks he takes with asinine skits and recurring preposterousnous more than make up for it.
But I didn’t write this article to tell you about how much I like Letterman, though the Conan /Jay situation did get Dave badmouthing Leno, a subject taboo until recently on the Late Night. Anyway, Conan is going to be OK, in fact I think he’s going to be more than OK, he gets to do what Letterman did and go to another network and have pretty much full control over HIS product, succeed or fail it really will be on Conan to make it work and I believe he will.
I’ll try not to go into detail about the mess but I won’t try and hate on Jay Leno too much either. I think it’s a case of NBC being very greedy, they signed Conan to take over the Tonight Show in 2005 when Conan could have gone on to another network for more money. However, it’s not Leno’s fault they threw a show at him and a bunch of money to go on right before Conan at 10pm. It’s Leno’s fault for taking offer but you can’t fault NBC for trying to keep Leno from destroying Conan in the ratings (which he would have if Leno went to Fox or wherever), in 2005 it’s a win-win.
Fast forward 2010, you have Conan faltering in the ratings, partly because or no substantial lead in audience due to Leno’s show tanking but also because it takes time to build an loyal audience like Leno and Letterman have done over the past couple decades. So NBC now sees their worst nightmare come to fruition, the Leno or Conan debate again. Still, even after all of this Leno is going to crush Conan in the ratings if he goes to another Network so the easiest thing to do is try to force Conan to quit, which is what they did essentially trying to demote Conan back to Late Night. Instead Conan did what I hoped he would do, force a paid exit and be allowed to reformulate his show in the near future.
So it kind of worked out for everyone even though it was pretty messy there for a couple weeks. Leno gets the Tonight Show back, Conan will get his “Letterman” opportunity and Letterman is #1 in Late Night. What will be very interesting to watch is the Late Night talent assembled behind Letterman and Leno as they continue to get closer to retirement. Jimmay Fallon has shown the kind of innovation, risk taking and downright absurdity pioneered by Letterman and continued by CoCo. Not to mention Craig Ferguson is fucking hilarious. Crappy skits aside, when it came down to it, I’ll admit I chose Craig over Conan though partly because I’m loyal to Letterman and don’t like flipping channels that late.
Either way, Letterman and Leno can’t very well be rocking Late Night into their 70’s which puts Fallon and Ferguson in a very good position. If I had my way, I’d like Conan to take over for Letterman sometime in the near future and I’m sure that’s been talked about by the CBS brass. It would be fitting to see Letterman hand the job off to Conan, both men being weaseled out of the Tonight Show job by the same person. I think Letterman’s successor is already booked though. Ferguson and O’Brien went head-to-head in terms of ratings late in Conan’s tenure as Late Night host.
The good thing is it’s almost over. Wherever Conan lands will be the ultimate decider of what will happen for the next decade of Late Night television. Only time will tell but it should be pretty interesting and it already has been.