Conan’s Out, Jay’s Back :: What Do You Make of The Late Night Mess?

If you haven’t heard already, Conan O’Brien’s stint on NBC’s The Tonight Show will officially end following tonights airing.  After a short 7 month run, the heir apparent will be making his exit from late night talk show stardom.  Jay Leno will re-assume the position as host of The Tonight Show, returning after his retirement, subsequent launching of a new prime-time show, and it’s gigantic failure.  There are tons of stories, articles and videos about this whole debacle that can be read and reviewed at your leisure.

Just ask Google.

But that’s not what I’m after.  You see, my opinion on the situation is:  it sucks.  I happen to like Conan, his comedy and the fact that he stuck it out on the 12:30am Late Nite show for 16 years in hopes of one day taking the prized Tonight Show position.  It was promised to him.  It was waited for.  It was given to him as successor to Jay Leno.  Simple.  This was Conan’s show to take on for the next couple decades, and I was excited to see what he would do with it given some time.

NBC chose, however, to gamble a bit on Jay Leno’s prime time disaster.  They lost the bet.  It all went belly-up and their hand was forced.  Affiliates on the local level were upset by loss of viewers, caused enough stink to make NBC make some choices, and Conan O’Brien is getting the raw end of the whole deal.

My opinion?  Jay Leno was done with The Tonight Show, tried something new, and failed.  Move on.  Why does NBC feel the need to cater to him?  Why start moving everything around to appease Jay Leno?  His show tanked.  Cancel it and move on.

But instead, NBC felt the need to keep Jay, move everything back to put him on at 11:30pm, and basically disrupt all post-evening-news programming to try and fit everyone in.  No one was for it, no one could agree, so someone had to leave.  Again, Conan gets the boot to make room.

Does NBC think this will just go away?  Do they think people are just going to forget that they canned their favorite talk show host?  He may not be everyone’s favorite, but trust me, he has a huge fan base.  Do they think Conan’s appeal is so shallow?  What about Jay’s part in all this?   Did he orchestrate any of it?  What was his part to play?  Could he not let go or is he just being a good corporate guy?  A yes man?

No one has any idea what’s happened behind closed doors, but rest assured that the viral social media engine does not care.  Twitter is ablaze with tweets full of anger and resentment towards both NBC and Jay Leno.  Search Twitter and see.  Search Google for any of the key words from this article and witness the intensity of the buzz around the situation.  It is not small.  It is not going away.

And it’s not good for ratings, NBC.

But that’s just my humble opinion.  Well, at least some of it.  What’s yours?  There are hundreds of facets to this story and it’s actually pretty fascinating.  I would love to hear your thoughts and viewpoints below.  There’s great potential for some incredible discussion here.

Can’t wait to talk this through with all of you!

Related posts:

1. Revisiting Google Buzz :: How’s Your Experience Been?
2. All the Buzz…or Not :: Google’s Feeble Attempt at Social Media