LENO NBC Primetime - 10:00pm MON-FRI*

Blame me... I haven't watched either in at least 7 months.

 

And the first statement above would be one of them.

Just because it's business does not mean there is no good and bad in decisions outside of the business angle of it.

Jay was not forced out. But he is not the host of the Tonight Show and to run back to it from a general standpoint is assinine. He finished his tenure.
It's not like the follow up host had a few years and decided to go (or it became clear that the show would never click). It's been just months.

Yes NBC scewed up, but Jay could do the right thing and step aside rather than push his way back. I don't dislike Jay. I don't even regularly watch either program, though both do their job well enough.

NBC put Jay at 10 for it's obvious reasons, but it didn't work out and Jay should move on to something else if he wants to continue to host a show.

There are other options for his old shoe middle of the road style.

 

Jay should be replacing Larry King on CNN. But will Larry himself ever retire?

 

Now that's edgy!

 

I dont find Jay funny, and I side with Conan on all of this, but I think it's sad that Jay's career is gonna have this as what people remember. Not a graceful way to bow out.

At this point, what is the best possible thing Jay could do in this situation now? If he declines going backto 1130, he put NBC in a crap situation just for him to bail when it got ugly. But going ahead he's the guy who retired but wanted it back and gave Conan the boot unfairly.

Just wondering with the brain trust here what could Jay possibly do to make himself not look like a collossal jerk?

 

So many things wrong with this post.

The weakness of labeling people with opposing viewpoints as narrow-minded or ignorant rather than strictly sticking to the subject at hand speaks for itself.

The analogy you make---"Tell me, if you were competing with someone else for a job, would you simply shrug and step down?"---- is not apt because Leno DID STEP DOWN graciously in his public statement in 2004. So he is either a phony or a turncoat based on his public comments and behavior. Who said anything about "rules in business".
It's the decent thing for him to do----STEP ASIDE.

 

As has been mentioned many times in this thread, Jay did the same thing by telling NBC in 1992 that he was going to do a rival talkshow on another network unless he was made the new host of the Tonight Show. Carson's contract was up anyway, and NBC put pressure on him to let it go, rather than continue another 2 or 3 years. Conan did exactly the same thing -- but I don't think he did it in nearly the same, devious way. Leno knew what was happening throughout the negotiations; Carson was sandbagged until the last minute. (All this according to Bill Carter's Late Shift book and industry trades.)

Not exactly, no. Also, Carson was 68 when he stepped down, and had hosted the Tonight Show for 30 years; Jay is 59 and hosted that show for only 17 years. He feels -- with some justification -- that he has at least another ten left in him to continue with some kind of late night talk show.

Having said that... I believe the best thing right now would be for Leno to leave and do his own show on Fox or ABC. Let Conan do his thing, and let all three of them battle it out. A year from now, we'll see who won.

BTW: if one of these hosts manages to snag Tiger Woods as a guest in the next six months, all bets are off.

 

That's how I see it, too. The time to fight this battle was then, not now.

 

http://www.hulu.com/watch/120279/jimmy-kimmel-live-tue-jan-12-2010

 

Here's how AP covered the announcement in 2004:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6115643/

 

I agree. But I also don't know the details of Jay's contract and that might not be so easy to do. One very often negotiates to not compete for a given period of time. One of the reasons Jay was given 10 pm was so he wouldn't do a similar late night show on a rival network. I strongly suspect that NBC doesn't want Jay to go against Conan on another network.

Hey, I work for NBCU; I know our capacity to **** things up!

 

Watched the beginning of Dave tonight, and it was great. Flipped to Conan during the break and he was interviewing Ricky Gervais, and it was absolutely brilliant television.

Say what you will--for better or for worse--this whole cluster**** has lit a fire under the proverbial butts of everyone involved in late night television, and the viewers (for the most part) are reaping the benefits.

 

A bit off-topic, but worth mentioning. Very nice of David Letterman to talk about the situation in Haiti tonight and put up the Web site where you can donate funds to help the people there.

Dave, a class act all the way.

 

I think that's getting tacky. Conan doesn't mention his show's low ratings when compared to Leno's, which is a big consideration in this whole mess.

 

I think that's getting pretty friggin' hilarious.

 

Leno's most important contribution to showbiz was as a standup comedian pre-TTS. He could bow out gracefully now and have a wildly successful career 3rd act playing live - just like Seinfeld or Robin Williams. Plus he could revamp the nice guy image and work a bit "blue" again.

 

But Fox can scoop up Leno and launch an alternative to Conan, Kimmel and Letterman.

If Conan's show stays at its current time slot, and assuming Leno leaves NBC, will his ratings return to their pre-"mess" level? If so, NBC would still be in trouble, but Leno may have a show in development by then.

 

By the way, Jimmy Kimmel will be the guest on "The Jay Leno Show" on Thursday.

 

And on Friday Joan Rivers is a guest on Jimmy's show. That should be interesting . . .