"What Does Jay Have On You People?"
Right in time for the premiere of Conan O’Brien’s new talkshow on TBS comes a Vanity Fair excerpt from Bill Carter’s new book on the conflicts of late-night television. He was the guy who chronicled the battle between Jay Leno and David Letterman for The Tonight Show after Johnny Carson in “The Late Shift”; his new book, “The War for Late Night”, follows last winter’s sad story of how Leno beat another competitor, Conan. Maybe you’re thinking that you’ve already read too much about the affair, but this is still fascinating stuff for those with the slightest interest in the game behind the curtains of a major TV network. The book explains one reason why NBC immediately took Jay’s side – Conan’s people didn’t have the brains to negotiate a contract as solid as Jay’s, which meant that dropping Conan would always be a much cheaper option for NBC than getting rid of Jay.
The following excerpt has NBC offering Conan the opportunity to… follow Jay. Again.
- “I get it,” [NBC head of entertainment cable channels] Jeff Gaspin said. “It’s not perfect. I’m offering you both half of what you want.” He added, “This has been an unfair situation for both of you.”
But Conan was seeing no equivalency on the fairness meter. Leno had hosted The Tonight Show for 17 years. He had handed it over and immediately shifted to 10 o’clock, voluntarily. How, Conan asked himself, could any of this be construed as unfair to Jay?
“I know how hard I worked for this,” Conan told the NBC executives. “It was promised to me. I had a shitty lead-in.” His tone was soft, but the words were clipped. Graboff knew this was Conan in the raw, speaking from the heart.
Conan asked if Lorne knew; how about Jimmy Fallon? Gaspin said he had spoken to both of them already. He then urged Conan to give the idea some time, take it in, think about it.
Conan listened to Gaspin, still with a faraway look in his eye. Finally he did have something he really wanted to say, something that was all but burning a hole in his chest. “What does Jay have on you?” Conan asked, his voice still low, his tone still even. “What does this guy have on you people? What the hell is it about Jay?”
The article goes on to portray NBC chief Jeff Zucker in a not too flattering light. Those who argued Leno should get The Tonight Show back for pure business reasons simply misses the point that getting rid of Conan and rewarding Jay was never a simple business decision. NBC could have taken a chance and dropped Leno. Sure, it would have cost them, but is the current situation really worth it? There is no excitement whatsoever surrounding Leno. Even Letterman is in decline. We basically have two old men who used to be something battling for an equally geriatric audience. Meantime, O’Brien is crawling out of his depression and launching an exciting new show on cable, the place where most good television is made these days anyway. To whom does the future belong?
The YouTube clip shows O’Brien on a panel in 2007 talking about taking over The Tonight Show.
Published by Stefan Hedmark 2010-10-31 13:30
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