I haven't written lately about the late night TV situation. As this article in the New York Times explains, various other networks and syndicators are preparing to empty the vaults to secure the services of Jay Leno as soon as he becomes a Free Agent. Regardless of whether you like Jay or not (I do), you might get some jollies at the thought that darn near every "expert" prediction that has ever been made about this guy failing has been spectacularly wrong.
At various times since he got the job of replacing the legendary Carson, network biggies, ad agencies, TV pundits and others have forecast his demise, especially against the might of Letterman. And while it's true that Dave dominated for a while, Jay's ratings were never all that bad. The guy stayed in the game and kept at it…and he's now about to become one of the wealthiest, most powerful souls in show biz, thanks to NBC betting against him and engineering his replacement by Conan O'Brien. Not all that long ago, entertainment reporters were writing that the decision to install Leno instead of Letterman behind the Tonight Show desk was one of the dumbest moves in the history of the industry. I think it may work the other way around: Hindsight will show it as a wise notion, and the ouster of Jay will be seen as the dumbest.
Not that O'Brien won't do well in that slot. He might or might not, and the "might not" may have a lot to do with factors beyond his control. Is Jimmy Fallon really going to be going in at 12:35 after him? Lead-ins matter to some extent but so do lead-outs. There are some folks who watch Leno now because the Jay/Conan parlay interests them more than Dave/Craig. Fallon seems to me a little too low-key to command America's attention at bedtime and I'm curious as to why NBC might think otherwise.
More significantly, we may have Dave, Jay and Conan carving that 11:35 audience three ways. That was what NBC was trying to avoid when they opted to nudge Leno aside rather than allow O'Brien to hopscotch over to Fox for a competing show. If Jay winds up with an 11:35 show (or even, on Fox, an 11 PM one), NBC probably won't be very happy with the results. Not happy at all.