Deborah Blair writes to ask…
I'm a little puzzled on one aspect of all this. Was Conan O'Brien fired or did he quit? And do you think this whole thing has damaged Jay forever?
As to the first question: A little of each, actually…and I think the man deserves great credit (this is not sarcasm) for spinning the whole story as "Conan being screwed" instead of "Conan not getting the ratings." It could have gone either way. At the Television Critics Association Press Tour in Pasadena, NBC sent one of their execs, Dick Ebersol, out to try and spin it in the latter rotation and no one was buying. O'Brien had already claimed the high ground and defined the narrative.
Conan and Jay both were doing shows that were performing well below expectations. Due to some combination of affiliate unrest and a simple reading of the numbers, NBC decided that neither show could be left in place for as long as they'd told the hosts they would have. It is hard to say from afar how much wiggle room the network had to leave one or both on in their respective time slots.
They came up with this idea to have a half-hour of Jay at 11:35 followed by a full hour of Conan at 12:05. Mr. O'Brien objected, saying he thought it was an insult to the grand and glorious tradition of The Tonight Show. I'm not sure I buy that as his prime concern…and let's note that many of the folks who cheered that stance probably still think Tonight would be in better hands with Conan at 12:05 than with the obvious alternative of Jay at 11:35. What I think Conan was thinking was that it was a halfway step towards shoving him back to 12:35…or off the schedule completely. NBC would also pay a larger settlement to get him off 11:35 than to remove him from a later slot if it came to that.
So what he and his managers did was cleverly arrange things so he didn't exactly quit and wasn't exactly fired — as close to a "no fault" separation as is possible in a mess like this. Such resolutions work out better for both sides. Forevermore, he can say, "I could have made 11:35 work but NBC didn't give me the chance." And the network can say, "We didn't fire Conan. We were willing to keep him on indefinitely but at a slightly later hour." I'm not entirely sure that the 11:35/12:05 proposal wasn't NBC's way of setting up precisely that situation.
As to your second question — has it damaged Jay forever?: In a business where Mel Gibson is still considered a top box office draw, I don't think very much can damage a star forever. You lose stature when it's perceived that your success/failure ratio has swung too far into the red…but personal stuff? You kind of have to go the O.J. Simpson route for the public to shun you. And of course, I think the case that Jay did anything wrong is pretty flimsy to begin with.
NBC's Jeff Gaspin was asked the question recently in a press conference of reporters and he said something that I think was basically accurate. He said, "I don't think most of America cares about this stuff as much as we do." If Jay loses audience share — and I expect he'll lose some — it'll probably have more to do with people not liking his show, as opposed to not liking him. Basically, he needs to remind viewers what it was they enjoyed about him before the Conan magilla and before the 10 PM show.
'Twill be interesting to see what kind of guest bookings his renewed Tonight Show will get right away. A number of celebs, even if they see Jay as the injured party in all this, may not want to appear to be taking sides. I don't think very many folks in show biz are like Rosie O'Donnell who, contrary to the evidence, seems to think Conan got bounced because Leno came in and demanded The Tonight Show back. But everyone in the industry (including, I'm sure, Jay) is sympathetic to the concept of a performer who wasn't given enough of a chance. Whether or not they think Conan was, they may want to steer clear for a while of being too supportive of his replacement. Let's see how fast Jay has to call on buddies like Jerry Seinfeld and Arnold Schwarzenegger to sit in his guest chair.