This Conan vs. Jay thing has me very annoyed and upset. My husband keeps laughing at me because of it, and doesn’t understand why I’m so invested, but really-to me, it’s a case of very bad manners.
We’ve always watched Jay Leno; I think he’s super funny, and up until recent weeks, I thought he was a pretty classy guy. Last year, when he “retired” I was a little sad to see him go, but I went with the change, and we began watching Conan. Admittedly, Conan had to grow on me a little, but if any of you remember, Jay had to grow on us too. And, despite the growing pains, I think Conan’s been doing a pretty good job. We’ve caught Jay’s prime time show here and there, and it has the same feel as the Tonight Show. I would imagine that people choose to watch one or the other, not both. So, to me, the low ratings on both shows are not a shock. 1-People are adjusting the changes, and 2-there is an over abundance of shows to choose from. It’s just natural selection, plain and simple. The strongest and funniest will survive.
So, to bring this rambling on home, my thoughts are this:
1-Jay signed the contract how many years ago that he would leave the Tonight Show to Conan? He knew it was coming.
2-He should not have done the Prime Time Show-that caused too much competition in the late night tv shows for Conan to have a chance at being successful.
3-When this whole craziness began, Jay should have stepped down from his show, leaving Conan to prove himself. If, at that point, Conan did not succeed, well, that would have been a different story.
So, ya, I’m Team Conan, even though I’ve been a Jay Leno fan for years. Like I said, it’s just bad manners.
Can’t agree with you on this one. Jay wasn’t given a choice in giving up the Tonight show which was rated #1 at the time the decision was made to replace him with Conan in five years and still #1 when they booted him out and turned the show over to Conan who quickly fell to #2 behind Letterman. Then NBC wouldn’t let him out of his contract for fear that he might move on to another network to start another show and take most of the Tonight show audience with him, so they talked him into taking the 10 PM slot and promised him two years which they then reneged on after only 4 months. With both show’s ratings down, and a near mutiny by the affiliates, NBC thought it had to do something and thought they could get both Jay and Conan to agree to Jay doing a 30 minute show after the news and Conan to continue doing the Tonight Show. Not wanting to see his show staff lose their jobs, Jay reluctantly agreed, but Conan balked. It was his decision to walk away, not Jay’s. He could have agreed and kept his show and all his staff would still have a job next month. I liked both guys in the old format when Jay had Tonight and Conan, the Late Show, but always thought Conan was a little too juvenile in his humor for my taste, and had an irritating habit of stepping on his guest’s attempts to answer questions by interjecting with his goofy antics when he interviewed them.
I have to say, you’ve made good points, and perhaps ultimately NBC is the one with bad manners…but why couldn’t they just put Jay behind Conan and leave the Tonight Show tradition intact?
ratings people…arent we watching it more to see what’s going to happen? arent we all thinking about this now…arent people tuning in to both to see what each one of them is going to say?