You never quite know the whole story until you start looking into the story you are going to write. This is what I discovered when I found myself upset that NBC was looking to fuck over Conan O'Brien. I admit I am not a diehard Conan fan. The show is DVR'd in the house but I wasn't the one that set the series recording. I don't watch Letterman. I don't watch Leno now. I didn't watch Leno then. For my money, Conan is the funniest of them all.
There are rumors floating out in rumorland that Leno will be moving back into the 11:30 slot. What's the big deal right? Perhaps no big deal, unless you have committed yourself to writing a blog for ten years and need a topic to write about. For me the difference between a blog and a rant, is a story. My rant started off something like "NBC sucks ass!" And although this still remains true, I basically didn't have anything to write after that. Why does NBC suck ass? Why is NBC doing it? Who is responsible?
It seems the man responsible is Jeff Zucker, according to a wonderful article by the Chronicles' Tim Goodman( http://www.seattlepi.com/tv/412579_DDE61AMFQT.html) written in November of 2009. It is difficult for me not to think of Alec Baldwin's character on 30 Rock when thinking of Zucker. In 2004, Zucker was the one that made the deal so that O'Brien would take over for Leno. It seemed, based on Leno's own words that he was willing to leave on his own terms. "In 2009, I'll be 59 years old and will have had this dream job for 17 years. When I signed my new contract, I felt that the timing was right to plan for my successor and there is no one more qualified than Conan." That seems pretty straightforward, right? A-ha, not so fast. In 2008, David Letterman, Leno's chief rival, was quoted in Rolling Stone saying: "Unless I'm misunderstanding something, I don't know why, after the job Jay has done for them, why they would relinquish that." This isn't exactly the bloody knife, but if Leno had felt that the "timing was right," why would he want he want to do a similar TV program, an hour and a half earlier, for an hour, on the same network? In December of 2008, it was reported that NBC would keep Leno and give him his own one hour show. This is when I would have been saying, "What the fuck?" if I was Conan.
Let's give Leno the benefit of the doubt. He probably changed his mind and realized that doing stand-up in Las Vegas for the rest of his life wasn't exactly how he wanted to end things. Keeping Leno on NBC guranteed that a rival network wouldn't land the man that "defeated handily" Letterman year after year. Either way you look at it, it's a classic clusterfuck!
It is easily understandable as to why NBC is looking to replace Conan with Leno. What is the bottom line in business? Mo' money, mo' money! Conan and Leno, according to the cryptic Nielson ratings, aren't delivering compared to their competitors. I suppose the ratings aren't as cryptic as it would seem (I think). The higher the ratings the more money you make. That is my simple guess. How do you fix this problem? Put the man that has been beating the shit out of his competitors for over 15 years back in the slot that he orignally came from. Voila'! Problem solved! Ah, but there is one slight problem. Probably, not a problem in business: an agreement, aka, a promise. A promise made by the man, the company to Conan in September of 2004.
So, now six months after Conan took over the show with the curtains and the backdrop of L.A., an executive is panicking. I'm certain this shit happens all the time in Hollywood. I am sure a man's word isn't worth a lot, and an executive's word is a lot less.
Jeff Zucker should be the one exiting his seat, not Conan. It's not even that Conan deserves a shot. He has been waiting five years. He is the same great talent at 11:30 as he was at the 12:30 time slot. Zucker, admit it. You fucked up. You are the unnamed man in the middle of all of this. Conan deserves more than six months. You should exit stage left.
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