It's fashionable lately to say that the recent Leno/O'Brien square dance at NBC is The Worst Mistake in Television History. I would like to suggest that what we have here is a series of decisions, some of which were right, some of which were wrong and a few of which seem right or wrong now but might flip the other way based on what happens in the future. Not all that long ago, there was a period wherein that honor — "The Worst Mistake in Television History" — was routinely bestowed on the decision to give The Tonight Show to Jay Leno instead of David Letterman. As Jay began to consistently beat Dave in the ratings, it became a bit more arguable that NBC had screwed up on that call.
Actually, that decision was not one decision, either. In early 1991, NBC execs were confronted with the following dilemma. Leno was Johnny's guest host to the point of sitting behind the desk about 40% of the time. He was getting better ratings than his predecessor sub, Joan Rivers, and Jay's numbers sported a significantly younger, more desirable demographic. He was also hosting more than she'd hosted. One of the trends in late night TV the last decade or three has been that as viewers have had more options, they've been less willing to watch talk show reruns. The ratings are pretty clear on this point and it's why the current late night shows deploy a lot fewer of them than Mr. Carson ever did. It's also why when they do re-air an old show, they pick a fairly recent one that won't feel as much like a rerun.
This trend was evident by the late eighties, which is why they cut back on the reuse of old Tonight Shows and began doing more new episodes. Since Johnny wasn't about to work more nights, that meant his guest host worked more nights. Jay was behind that desk pretty damn often and he seemed to be developing a good following. That's why CBS made him a mega-offer to come over and host a late night show there…and by so doing, fired the opening shot in The Late Night Wars.
Leno's manager Helen Kushnick, in one of her saner moments, went to NBC and did what any manager in the business would have done. She said, "If you want to keep him, you're going to have to give him a lot more money and job security." That pretty much meant The Tonight Show, effective whenever Mr. Carson abdicated. So now NBC had this decision to make: Give Jay what he wants or let him go to CBS?
They had little doubt that if Jay went up against them, he would beat The Tonight Show on the nights they still ran reruns. Joan Rivers hadn't but Pat Sajak usually had. (Also, Joan was on Fox before it was that formidable a competitor. NBC was a lot more afraid of Jay on CBS than they'd ever been of Rivers on Fox.) They were also afraid that Leno would beat Johnny's new shows. Arsenio Hall was starting to do that…at least with a younger demographic, the kind Leno would deliver for CBS. If Arsenio could do it, Jay could do it.
And they were especially afraid that Jay would slaughter whoever they got to replace him on the nights Johnny was off which, let's remember, was pretty damn often. Would that have happened? Obviously, since they never picked the person, we'll never know…but at that moment, there didn't seem to be a lot of encouraging prospects for the fill-in post. The few names that were batted about didn't seem like sure bets and most of them would have demanded what Jay's manager was demanding for her client: A guarantee of The Tonight Show job whenever Johnny departed.
Today, Johnny Carson's a legend and he's viewed as the guy nobody ever beat in late night…but part of that rep is because no one that strong ever went up against him, especially in his later years. I mean, Alan Thicke? Rivers? Sajak? Which one of those ever demonstrated any ability to hold an audience night after night with their own talk show? The only competitor he ever bested who had any other prolonged success in that area was Merv Griffin and that was in 1970. Pat Sajak actually did rather well against Johnny for a week or two in 1989, proving that audiences were not irrevocably loyal to Carson; that the notion of another talk show at that hour was feasible. Soon though, America decided they were bored by Pat and drifted back…and not just to Johnny but to Johnny and Jay. CBS had the right idea but the wrong guy.
At the time Leno got the CBS offer, Carson's ratings weren't that wonderful. His audience was aging and that not only makes it harder to sell advertising at top rates but it usually indicates that a show's best days are behind it. So NBC gave Jay what he and his manager wanted…and as it turned out, Johnny announced his retirement soon after.
I have never, by the way, believed the claim that anything Leno or his people did "forced" Carson out. Johnny was the most powerful star in the history of network television and the execs then at NBC lived in absolute terror of him. I can't buy the assertion that when Jay's manager planted one basically-true story in the tabloids — the rumor that some there felt it was time for J.C. to go — Carson felt shoved out the door and left against his will. I think he just realized, with his impeccable timing, that if he didn't leave soon, he might not leave on top.
In any case, that was the decision that gave Jay Leno The Tonight Show. It was not about whether Dave or Jay was the rightful heir apparent. It was not even about which of the two guys would host a better Tonight Show. People who run TV networks are usually all about solving immediate problems, not planning for the future. They're judged by how they solve immediate problems. They're fired if they don't solve immediate problems and then they're not around to take the bows if and when long-range planning pays off.
The decision to guarantee Jay Leno The Tonight Show upon Carson's departure was about keeping him on as Johnny's guest host for however much longer Johnny stayed. It was also about being ready for a day, the timing of which they could not predict with much accuracy, when Johnny would decide to hang it up. But most of all, it was about keeping Leno off the competition. In the world of television, the only thing worse than being clobbered in the ratings is being clobbered by something you had and you let it get away.
If you think not letting Jay go was a mistake, tell me how they would have replaced him. Take Dave off Late Night (thereby destroying that highly-successful show) and move him out here to be Johnny's guest host? Hire some unknown person to sub for Carson and hope he caught on as well as Jay had? That was not an easy job, being Johnny's guest host. A lot of successful people weren't very successful at it. And like I said, some of the leading candidates wouldn't have taken it if the permanent gig wasn't part of the deal. Bring in one of them and you'd have had the same problem where Johnny leaves and Dave doesn't get the job, plus you'd have had Jay opposite you.
Later, after Carson was out and Leno was in for a while, there was another big decision to be made. David Letterman wanted The Tonight Show and threatened to leave NBC if they didn't shove Jay aside and turn it over. The network actually made a kind of half-assed decision to do that but Dave didn't accept their terms and instead went to CBS. Was it a mistake for them to not kick Leno out then, even though his ratings were quite decent, and bring in Dave? I don't think so. Imagine this scenario: They boot Jay and that leads to a situation not unlike what we're currently seeing with Conan, with people rallying behind a guy who seems to have been unfairly fired, just because someone else wants to be the star of The Tonight Show.
I don't believe, by the way, that's an accurate summary of what's going on now. I doubt Jay barged into Jeff Zucker's office and said, "Get rid of Conan and give me back 11:35!" But that's more or less the way it's coming across in the press and it is pretty much what Letterman's agents did on his behalf when there was that full court press to get Leno fired. So in our scenario, Dave looks like the bad guy who took Jay's job away. And Jay goes on CBS with a competing show and then beats him in the ratings for…oh, maybe fifteen of the next seventeen years. Maybe more.
If he had, then the decision to fire Jay and give his job to Dave would have become The Worst Mistake in Television History. In TV, as we know, the only thing worse than being clobbered in the ratings is being clobbered by something you had and you let it get away.
Don't tell me that couldn't have happened. If Jay on NBC could beat Dave on CBS, Jay on CBS could have beaten Dave on NBC, especially with the victim card in hand. I'm fascinated that people are now suggesting that Leno is "damaged goods" because America hates him for getting Conan fired. As I'll explain, I don't think he did that…or at least, Jay did less to get Conan fired than Conan's people did to get Jay fired. But viewer perception is everything in such matters. If America sees Jay as a backstabber, it could well hurt him. And if they'd felt that way about David Letterman in 1993, that could have hurt him, as well.
There may have been something else NBC could have done…something that would have kept both Dave and Jay on their network and prevented the situation where CBS got to set up a successful competing late night schedule. I say that but I sure don't know what it would have been. Both guys wanted 11:35. CBS was willing to hire either. How do you stop one from winding up over there? (Once when I had this discussion with a guy who was at NBC at the time, he wondered aloud if there was any way Dave and Jay could have shared The Tonight Show. And before I could say it, he said, "No, they both wanted to be Johnny.")
Now, let's jump ahead to five years ago. Jay is doing great as the host of Tonight. Conan's reps go to NBC and announce that he's going to leave because he feels it's time he had an 11:35 show. I dunno if they said, "…unless, of course, you want to fire Jay," because that would have felt like the longest of shots, given that Leno was in the middle of a great winning streak. But whoever's idea it was, NBC (apparently Jeff Zucker) offers Conan this deal: Stay five more years at 12:35 and we'll retire Jay and give you The Tonight Show. Conan grabs it and stays.
Everyone is now saying this was a tremendous mistake and yeah, it sure looks that way. NBC was solving a short-term problem, which was losing Conan at 12:35 and facing the possibility that he'd go on opposite them…maybe on Fox, perhaps on ABC. Both then seemed like more likely destinations than they do today. As we've noted here: In TV, the only thing worse than being clobbered in the ratings is being clobbered by something you had and you let it get away.
So they solved a short-term problem by creating a long-term problem. They do that in television, you know.
They may not have even considered what they'd do if in five years, Jay hadn't worn out his welcome with America. They knew his audience would be getting older…and it did, though maybe not as much as they'd feared. They probably figured Jay would be history by now and they'd be thrilled to have Conan there to replace him. If someone said to the now-infamous Jeff Zucker, "Uh, what happens in '09 if Jay's numbers are up and Conan's are down?," he probably replied, "That's not going to happen…and if it does, so what? I probably won't be here to have to sort it out." As the writer William Goldman once noted about folks who run movie studios, and it applies to TV networks too, they wake up every morning knowing that sooner or later, they're going to be fired.
It was also a mistake for Leno to go along with it. He did it graciously. He may even have thought at the time that his popularity would atrophy over those five years. No interviewer has yet extracted from Jay just what was on his mind, then or now. I imagine that once all the contracts are signed, he'll be on with Larry King and others, trying to repair his reputation. The explanation of what has recently occurred will probably go something like this, and I'm not suggesting some or all of this is not accurate…
Yeah, I agreed to it back in 2004. I kept my word. I gave up a show that my team and I had built into a success, a show we loved doing and one that America apparently didn't want to see go. I never promised I wouldn't do another show somewhere and 10:00 was not my idea. When NBC suggested it, I thought, "Hey, there's a new challenge." It was also a way to give jobs to a lot of people who'd been very loyal to me and done fine work to make my Tonight Show fly. I guess the 10:00 program didn't work. Maybe given more time, it would have. They always said, "Wait until everything opposite Jay is in reruns. Then you'll see the strength of having him on at ten." Then when the numbers weren't there right away, they panicked and didn't wait for that.
They did the same thing to Conan. I didn't cancel him. I don't have the power to make the network do what I want. If I did, I'd still be on at 10. People are saying, "Conan's show could have done better if you hadn't given him such a weak lead-in." Well, maybe…but he was in third place before my show went on. And hey, you want to look at some of the weak lead-ins they gave me when I was hosting The Tonight Show? NBC has always had a 10:00 problem. That's why they tried a wild experiment there…because they've never known what to put at 10:00 most nights and, hey, look at me. They still don't. But when I was hosting Tonight, I had to put up with a lot of weak shows there and somehow, I managed to be in first place for fifteen years. Even before that when Dave was kicking my ass, I was a respectable second. I never finished third. If I had, they would have canned me. There's no sentiment in this business. If you don't deliver, they kick you out. That's how the game is played. Hell, sometimes when you do deliver, they kick you out. Twice now, NBC has decided to get rid of me when I was in first place!
I'm sorry about Conan. If it had been my decision, I would have given him the full two years or whatever his contract calls for and I wouldn't have been the least surprised if he took it to #1. But if he's got a beef, it's not with me. I don't program that network. They came to me and said, "You've got to take back 11:35." Well, why not? I'm out of work. My whole staff is out of work. We liked doing that show. If I'd said no, they wouldn't have stuck with Conan. God knows who'd have gotten to sit behind the desk. I hear Jeff Zucker may need a new job soon.
He'll say something like that and a lot of it, maybe most of it will be true. I really like Jay Leno. I don't always like what he does on television but I've been watching the man since his Comedy Store days. I don't think he's the Machiavellian schemer some are now making him out to be. Or at least, he doesn't do anything other stars don't do except that sometimes — at least since he rid himself of Helen Kushnick — he seems to do it himself, whereas others let their managers and lawyers soil their hands. Jay made some bad judgment calls, starting with the decision to go along with the five-year plan. I'd love to hear why he did. Maybe he really thought he'd be ready to leave by '09. Or maybe he thought that if his ratings in '09 were still strong, he's be in a helluva bargaining position…which he was but he used it to get the wrong thing.
The 10:00 show was, of course, NBC's way of dealing with the long-term problem they'd created and — surprise, surprise — Jeff Zucker was still there to cope with it. They had to replace the #1 guy in late night in order to honor Conan's deal, thereby creating a new short-term problem,: What if Jay now went to Fox? I don't think ABC would dump Nightline for Conan, especially since — this week, aside — Conan's been pretty consistently in last place…but they might have grabbed Jay. Someone probably would have…and if that show started beating Conan —?
Hey, you think they're saying bad things about Mr. Zucker now? Imagine what they'd be saying if that had happened. Like I said: In TV, the only thing worse than being clobbered in the ratings is being clobbered by something you had and you let it get away.
So to keep Leno on the reservation — and possibly in the bullpen in case O'Brien failed — they cooked up The Jay Leno Show. And they probably also had a third reason, which was that their 10:00 programming was such a disaster area that it was worth a wild gamble to see if this just might make things better. Obviously, it didn't work out that way. Bad show, bad idea. A worthy contender for the honor of The Worst Mistake in Television History.
Everyone now says they knew the minute it was announced that it couldn't possibly work…and some of those people actually did. I won't claim I was one of them. For one thing, I thought Jay would put on a lot better show than the one he gave us. Whether he could have succeeded at all in that time slot might be debatable…but I don't think he could possibly have succeeded with that show. It was like they didn't know what The Jay Leno Show was but they produced it, anyway…and Jay oughta get most of the blame for that. When it's your show, you get most of the glory when things go right and most of the money whether they do or not. It's only fair that you get most of the blame for what goes wrong. There's usually some truth to excuses about bad time slots and lack of support and insufficient promotion — though Jay certainly can't complain about the amount of promotion he got. But in the main, you always could have done better if you'd done a better show.
There was actually a nugget of logic in the idea of a stripped talk show at 10 PM. Because of reduced costs, NBC could make a tidy profit with reduced ratings and word is that they've been doing that, even with Jay's show performing below expectations. The trouble is that the affiliates with their 11 PM newscasts can't correspondingly lower their costs and make as much profit with reduced ratings. It's baffling that the network didn't see that coming.
Still, I suspect there are those at NBC — perhaps even the much-maligned Mr. Zucker — who would have liked to have given both Jay and Conan more time in their respective slots. When New York Times reporter Bill Carter writes The Late Shift II as a lot of us are assuming he will, it will be interesting to see how much of a role the affiliates played in the timing of the decision to cut and run on both programs, and whether the network really had the option of replacing Leno now and giving O'Brien until, say, the end of the year to stop finishing third.
Would he have done significantly better if he hadn't had Leno's calamity as his 10 PM lead-in? We'll never know. Someone obviously thinks Conan's ratings are unacceptable, even allowing for that handicap. They also may not have much confidence that what they're going to replace Leno's show with will give their 11:35 guy, whoever he is, a lot more help than Conan has been receiving with Jay there. Then they're looking at how Jay consistently managed to win that time slot even with (often) low-rated shows on at 10:00…and there you have the reason for the switch. I'm not saying it's a good reason but it's a reason. Me, I'm going to guess that the revived Tonight Show with Jay Leno will do less well than the old one…that is, unless they do a helluva makeover on it. If it's only as good as his 10 PM show, it'll probably still improve somewhat on the numbers Conan was getting before the current controversy gave him a little boost…but not enough to justify losing O'Brien.
Late night is all about the long haul. The premise of replacing Jay with Conan was always that Conan was supposed to represent the future of NBC late night. They did it to keep Conan from doing a competing show but he was still supposed to be their future. What's their future now? I'm sorry. I don't think it's Jimmy Fallon, the guy who was losing to Craig Ferguson before Leno departed. I also don't think it's the Jay Leno who gave us The Jay Leno Show at 10 PM.
It's easy to say what they shouldn't have done. They shouldn't have done almost everything they did do. It's harder to say what they should have done. A lot of us think that given time, O'Brien would have delivered a more-watched Tonight Show. Zucker and his crew may not agree…or even if they do, it may be that affiliates are threatening massive defection and the network feels they can't wait that long. Whatever, as usual, they're going for the short-term solution.
I seem to be quite alone in thinking that a half-hour Jay Leno Show at 11:35 and Conan's Tonight Show at 12:05 wasn't a terrible idea, at least from the network's vantage point. At least, I think it would have gotten better numbers than either guy followed at 12:35 by Fallon. But Conan wouldn't go along with it and I can't blame him…especially if he saw it as an interim move by folks who didn't have much faith in him. I mean, if it didn't work, he'd have been in even bigger ratings trouble and if it did, someone at NBC might have said, "Hey, think what a full hour of Jay there would do for us." And suddenly, Conan's either gone or back at 12:35.
Maybe the biggest mistake in all this was that they let it go public. The 12:05 idea could have been discussed in private. Conan could have rejected it in private and we'd never have heard of it, except maybe a year from now in Bill Carter's probable book. Instead, they forced O'Brien to accept or reject it in the press…and by rejecting it, he effectively said, "Keep me at 11:35 or fire me," forcing the issue.
They shouldn't have let it get to that. Apparently, someone theorized that either Conan would have accepted 12:05 or he'd quit, thereby saving them the massive penalty fees in his contract. Neither happened. It was reported that when Conan issued his statement of defiance, he did so over the wishes of his lawyers and managers. Whether that's true or not, that statement may turn out to be the one thing that anyone in this whole, sorry gang bang did right. I didn't think so when I read it last Tuesday but it was. He's getting out. He's getting his big settlement. And NBC is in this wonderful situation: The guy they're getting rid of looks like a hero and everyone is trashing the guy on whom they're now staking the future of their late night franchise. Heck of a job there, Brownie.
This did not have to happen. It is possible in this business to cancel a show, even prematurely, without creating this kind of ruckus and fragging your own troops in the process. It's even possible to replace one guy with another without creating headline stories on TMZ of feuds and backstabbing. If they were so determined to reinstate Jay at 11:35, they could have made a secret deal with him, then cancelled Conan. If they wanted to stampede Conan into quitting, there were other ways they could have tried, ways that kept Leno's name out of it. Once Conan was removed, they then could have released stories that said they were still trying to lure Jay back but he was hesitant…and then finally, bowing to public demand Jay agrees to come back, not as the guy who squeezed Conan out but as the hero rushing to rescue the grand tradition of The Tonight Show from oblivion. I don't know why they didn't do it that way. I don't know why Jay didn't insist they do it that way.
Like Conan said in his statement, we shouldn't feel sorry for him. He gets that big payoff…and if NBC wasn't going to give him the chance to make a success of his Tonight Show, then he's probably better off going out this way. I really don't know where he'll land but he'll land somewhere.
If he does a hit show there, especially if it's opposite Jay and he beats him, then the decision to oust him now will surely and definitively be viewed as The Worst Mistake in Television History. This is the last time I'm telling you people: In TV, the only thing worse than being clobbered in the ratings is being clobbered by something you had and you let it get away.
If he doesn't succeed somewhere soon and Jay does, the decision to give up on Conan now won't look like The Worst Mistake in Television History. But the one five years ago sure will.
And if both guys ultimately fail? Well, they'll both do fine in that elusive long run. Conan will find a home. Jay can do standup in Vegas and elsewhere for the rest of his life and each week, he'll make enough money to buy another dozen Duesenbergs. But regardless of what happens, I don't see any possible way that the current regime at NBC will be happy with how it all turned out. Eight months ago, they had a prosperous, thriving late night franchise and now it's a lot less profitable and likely to remain that way. Even if Jay gets them back to first place, it's not going to be what it was…and one might also factor in the ancillary damage, like the fact that top TV producers will be extra-wary of selling their wares to a network that seems so dysfunctional about standing by its own commitments.
So it looks like some decision in there was indeed The Worst Mistake in Television History. I'm not sure which one it was but it was in there somewhere. In fact, there were probably at least two of The Worst Mistakes in Television History…or maybe even more. Things don't get this fucked-up over just one mistake.
