Jay Leno moving back to the Tonight Show?

[DRW50]

I'm not a big Jimmy Kimmel fan but I don't get the wah wahing about Kimmel's insults against him. He seems so thin-skinned. I'm tired of he and NBC making him a victim.

[bellcurve]

Big Jaw should go f*ck himself.

And he started the reignition with the infidelity jokes by saying, "I didn't sleep with my staff for nothin'."

And it wasn't just one cheap shot. There were several.

[Sylph]

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2010/01/conan-gets-his-biggest-ratings-with-finale.html

[Juliajms]

But they didn't ask him to take over The Tonight Show. They were going to give him a 30 min show until Conan decided to leave. If they were really that unhappy with Conan's rating why didn't they just fire him and move Jay back to the tonight show initially. I understand Conan had a contract but NBC could have initiated the buy out, but they didn't.

[DRW50]

Ken Tucker isn't exactly a Leno fan, so take it with a grain of salt, but I thought this was a good writeup about that Oprah appearance.

http://watching-tv.ew.com/2010/01/28/jay-leno-oprah-winfrey/

[dragonflies]

Late night fans got the surprise of a lifetime during the second quarter of the Super Bowl tonight when they saw Jay Leno sitting side-by-side with David Letterman in a promo for CBS’ Late Show. Appearing with Oprah Winfrey, Letterman laments about how bad the party is, and Leno retorts “he’s just saying that because I’m here.” Minutes after the spot (embedded below), CBS sent out word that the two late night stars taped the spot last Tuesday at the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York City. The spot was a revisit, of sorts, to a 2007 Super Bowl spot that featured Letterman and Winfrey. A Late Show spokesman said the spot was Letterman’s idea, and Leno and Winfrey were willing participants.

The promo was all the more surprising given the beating that Leno took last month by his fellow late night competitors over Conan O’Brien’s departure from NBC. Letterman was particularly critical, though he’d just as quickly turn the negative spotlight on himself by reminding everyone that NBC still didn’t want him for the Tonight Show. NBC, in the meantime, now has an uphill battle on its hands in having to promote the new Tonight Show with its old host Leno, though one insider commented that today’s promo certainly makes it a little easier. “It does a lot for all three in the commercial,” said the source.

And it certainly fits nicely with NBC Chairman Jeff Gaspin’s strategy of marketing Leno’s return with “some humor and a wink, not a sledgehammer.” “We will certainly be more subtle,” he told EW last month. “Fortunately the positive side of this public battle is that everybody knows what is going on, so you don’t have to create awareness. All we have to do is gently remind people when it starts. We’ll have the Olympics as a platform to let people know that Jay will be back on The Tonight Show starting March 1.”

http://hollywoodinsider.ew.com/2010/02/07/jay-leno-appears-with-david-letterman-in-super-bowl-ad/

[bellcurve]

Best damn ad all game. Certainly took me and my friend by surprise.

Thanks for posting that article.

[Sylph]

Apparently… According to LA Times… Craig Ferguson is the most interesting person on late-night TV canvas:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-ferguson14-2010feb14,0,334675.story

Plus, Leno's farewells:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-last-guest9-2010feb09,0,5693730.story

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-leno10-2010feb10,0,2301891.story

[Sylph]

'The Tonight Show' still has to worry about tomorrow

[DRW50]

That article is generally very kind to NBC -- they don't point out just how useless and boring Jimmy Fallon is (he has been foisted on the public for over 10 years now and the public have consistently rejected him), or that one of the problems with Leno's show wasn't that people don't want to see comedy at 10 PM, but that the show was dull and tired.

Here's another article, which also sort of has a puff piece attitude towards Jay. They don't point out that he was already losing viewers even in his last year on the air.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35595855/ns/entertainment-television/

He has very low expectations to meet. If he gets back a good percentage of his viewers, which I assume he will, expect a lot of press fawning about how America loves him and NBC won and all the rest.

[Sylph]