The Brits are reporting about this too, of course.

<p><span style="font-size:19.5pt;"><font face="Verdana">The Conan O'Brien and Jay Leno disaster</font></span>

<span style="font-size:10.5pt;"><b><font face="Verdana">Chris Ayres assesses how it all went wrong in the US clash of late-night TV titans</font></b></span>

<span style="font-size:9pt;"><span style="line-height:90%;"<span style="text-align:justify;"><font face="Verdana">In the realm of workplace humiliations, not much comes close to the current predicament of Conan O'Brien, the former Simpsons writer turned late-night talk-show host. The agony is all the greater given that only a few weeks ago, O'Brien was at the very pinnacle of American network television — a place so regal, so universally coveted that only four men in the history of the medium have been deemed worthy of it. He was, of course, the permanent host of NBC's The Tonight Show — an institution that dates back to the very birth of the television age in 1954. He had inherited the job from Jay Leno, who in turn got it from Johnny Carson, who held the job for 30 years. The status of the position is such that O'Brien's salary is a reported $40 million.

It's a curious quirk of American television, the 11.35pm late-night show — and one that has never really been successfully replicated in Britain (which perhaps explains why Jonathan Ross is so keen to cross the Atlantic). But its importance should not be underestimated. The format is straightforward enough: every night, the host performs a topical comic monologue in front of a live audience, introduces a few taped skits, then later (after half the audience goes to bed) interviews a couple of celebrities with movies or books to plug.

Typically, there's also a Top of the Pops-style interlude. The trick is to make the kind of jokes that your own network's news division can replay during the following day's cycle, and/or to invite guests who will embarrass themselves on air, thus creating news of your very own.

Although The Tonight Show is without question the daddy of all the late-night shows, NBC's two main rivals have their own well-known franchises: CBS has The Late Show with David Letterman (Letterman joined CBS after being infamously denied the Tonight Show job, in spite of a reported promise from Johnny Carson); and ABC has Jimmy Kimmel Live!, which was launched in 2003.

It would be fair to say that every comic in America wants to host one of these shows. The networks are well aware of this, of course, so they frequently hire late-late -night comics, who appear after midnight, and promise them that, one day, the before-midnight slot could be theirs. For 16 long years until May last year, Conan O'Brien was one of these pretenders. And then — at last! — the throne was his.

As reigns go, however, O'Brien's has been a short and bloody one. The first problem was the rapidly approaching obsolescence of network television itself, as evidenced by abject declines in ratings across the board as viewers flee to their computers, or wi-fi enabled smart phones, or Wii games consoles.

For proof, consider Oprah Winfrey's recent decision to end her daily talk show after 25 years. NBC, like all media organisations, knew that it must to do something in an attempt to halt this trend, or at least come up with a profitable enough gimmick to make up for its smaller audience. So Jeff Zucker, the company's president and chief operating officer, hatched a radical plan: let's take our biggest, most reliable star — Jay Leno, who will celebrate his 60th birthday this spring — and move him from the hallowed Tonight Show to an earlier time of 10pm!

Never mind that the 10pm slot is widely known within the broadcast industry as a "deathscape", a terrain so inhospitable, so utterly unfavourable to all forms of ratings life that only the most cockroach-like of formats, the procedural crime drama (Law & Order, CSI: Miami, etc.), can hope to survive it.

Nevertheless, Leno was moved, and O'Brien, a pale, freckled 46-year-old — whose quiff is brushed up at such an angle that it looks like a kind of advancing ginger tsunami — got the job that had reportedly been promised to him in 2004.

It must have taken all of, oh, a couple of weeks before Zucker realised that he had made a mistake of truly collossal proportions. O'Brien wasn't just crushed. He was turned to vapour. And then, to the horror of both O'Brien and NBC, the David Letterman scandal broke.

Normally, of course, the misfortune of a rival network host would be seen as cause for private celebration. But the on-air confession by Letterman that he had been playing footsie with members of his own staff (resulting in a blackmail attempt by an ex-boyfriend of one of them) turned every episode of The Late Show into a cliffhanger. For weeks, Letterman's ratings exploded. Conan disappeared. As for Leno, it was as though the man had left the country.

In less troubled times, NBC might have attempted to tough it out. Change is always hard, after all, but audiences usually come around, eventually, as they did a few years after Katie Couric was appointed anchor of the CBS Evening News. And O'Brien had some moments of inspired genius, such as hiring William Shatner (of Star Trek fame)to read out passages from Sarah Palin's memoir in the style of a beat poet. He even managed to convince Palin to make a surprise visit to the studio and get her own back by reading out sections of Shatner's equally awkward memoir in a similar style.

There were other reasons to be patient, chief among them being that NBC had just paid an astronomical sum of money to relocate O'Brien and his family from New York to Los Angeles, where the set of The Tonight Show was moved from a rather drab street in the desert suburb of Burbank to the glittering theme park of Universal Studios.

But no matter how much cash had been thrown at the Leno/O'Brien experiment, it was nothing compared with the $30 billion deal struck last month by Comcast, a cable company, to take control of the entire NBC empire (known as NBC Universal) from its former parent company, General Electric.

NBC's new owners were in no mood for a ratings experiment. While Leno's viewership at 10pm was deemed to be within an acceptable range by NBC — and his show was reportedly making money — the network's local affiliates across the country were complaining bitterly.

Leno's ratings were so bad, they said, that no one was tuning into their post-10pm news broadcasts, which meant that they were bleeding advertising revenues in addition to the money they'd already lost to the recession.

There was nothing for it: Leno had to go back to his 11.35pm slot, tail between legs. And O'Brien? He just got the greatest job in the world, only to lose it less than a year later. He has, of course, joked about it. "This weekend no one was seriously hurt, but a 6.5 earthquake hit California," he said. "The earthquake was so powerful that it knocked Jay Leno's show from ten o'clock to 11.35." But the jokes soon ended when NBC made it clear that its decision was final. Its only concession to O'Brien was that he could keep The Tonight Show name: it would simply go on air after Leno's new show. No biggie.

By all accounts, O'Brien is beyond furious. And he is refusing to budge. "I cannot express in words how much I enjoy hosting this programme and what an enormous personal disappointment it is for me to consider losing it," he said in a statement. "My staff and I have worked unbelievably hard and we are very proud of our contribution to the legacy of The Tonight Show. But I cannot participate in what I honestly believe is its destruction. For 60 years The Tonight Show has aired immediately after the late local news. I sincerely believe that delaying [it] into the next day to accommodate another comedy programme will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting. The Tonight Show at 12.05am simply isn't The Tonight Show."

It's a dangerous gambit for O'Brien. There are rumours of a rival offer from Fox, which doesn't have a strong late night franchise, but the unfortunate facts remain that Leno is the more popular comic, and that O'Brien earns vastly more money than most Americans can hope to dream of, and so risks looking spoilt and petulant by objecting too much.

Neither is it clear that his contract was ever conditional on appearing in a certain time slot. There's no doubt about it: he was, as one late-night television show writer puts it, "shafted". If Jonathan Ross thinks he got a hard time at the BBC, he hasn't seen anything yet.</font></span></span></span>

<span style="font-size:7.5pt;"><b><font face="Tahoma">http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/tv_and_radio/article6986886.ece</font></b></span></p>

Edited January 14, 201015 yr by Sylph

ZUCKER THREATENS TO ICE CONAN! Says "I'll Keep You Off The Air For 3 1/2 Years"; Conan Reps Counter: "This Will End Up In Front Of A Judge If NBC Doesn't Wise Up"

Gossip Cop — first time hearing about the website — says Leno signed a contract to return to The Tonight Show.

Gossip Cop — first time hearing about the website — says Leno signed a contract to return to The Tonight Show.

TMZ is also reporting it and they have been spot on over the past several months

http://www.tmz.com/2010/01/14/jay-leno-conan-obrien-nbc-the-tonight-show/

It's also being reported that next week will be Conan's last week on the air.

Edited January 14, 201015 yr by JaneAusten

Wow. That's some bull.

Jay Leno will never get his audience back.

And everyone knew it would happen.

What's left is to see whether Zucker will really "ice" Conan for the next 3.5 years.

Since when did TMZ get into the business side of entertainment? LOL They usually just deal with the lives of celebrities. First, there's TMZ Sports and now business side of the industry? I guess they'll going for world domination!

Next stop — TMZ reports soaps!

What's left is to see whether Zucker will really "ice" Conan for the next 3.5 years.

Ari Emanuel better show that he is the most powerful agent in Hollywood! He cannot let that happen to his client.

Ari Emanuel better show that he is the most powerful agent in Hollywood! He cannot let that happen to his client.

Not only him, but that whole Pitbull Team they assembled: Palone, Rosen & Glaser!

And everyone knew it would happen.

What's left is to see whether Zucker will really "ice" Conan for the next 3.5 years.

You'd think NBC, who has been a total f-up across the board they'd want to possibly generate a bit of good will.

I didn't realize just how much of a screw up Zucker has been. He's not only trashed NBC with his management approach but he also played a huge role in the destruction of WNBC's newscast which apparently dominated for year. Harvard must be so proud.

And I don't wish anyone ill will but I can't help but hope Jay's Tonight Show collapses.

Wow. That's some bull.

Jay Leno will never get his audience back.

And if it doesn't, it's death for Tonight. Conan will never run it again, his childhood dream broken into a million little pieces.

I can see this going to court and a settlement reached. That's seems the most probable thing right now to me.

You'd think NBC, who has been a total f-up across the board they'd want to possibly generate a bit of good will.

I didn't realize just how much of a screw up Zucker has been. He's not only trashed NBC with his management approach but he also played a huge role in the destruction of WNBC's newscast which apparently dominated for year. Harvard must be so proud.

And I don't wish anyone ill will but I can't help but hope Jay's Tonight Show collapses.

Can someone explain to me exactly how did we get here? Why on Earth did they (and Leno) agree in 2004 to end Leno's run and bring Conan in? When Leno was beating Letterman? It all seemed so dumb then and it does so now.

The Jay Leno Show project was just too hilarious for words. Classic Jeff Zucker.

Can someone explain to me exactly how did we get here? Why on Earth did they (and Leno) agree in 2004 to end Leno's run and bring Conan in? When Leno was beating Letterman? It all seemed so dumb then and it does so now.

The Jay Leno Show project was just too hilarious for words. Classic Jeff Zucker.

Back in 2004, Leno "agreed" but he was definitely pushed out by Zucker. Zucker wanted Conan in 2009. Then when ABC was courting Leno, Zucker didn't want Leno as a competitor so he signed Leno to a new deal. It made no sense to push out Leno who was still #1 and he didn't want to leave. (That's what I remember, don't know if it's totally accurate. LOL)

But you know Zucker, he's such a punch line for bad decisions.

Can someone explain to me exactly how did we get here? Why on Earth did they (and Leno) agree in 2004 to end Leno's run and bring Conan in? When Leno was beating Letterman? It all seemed so dumb then and it does so now.

The Jay Leno Show project was just too hilarious for words. Classic Jeff Zucker.

Jeff Zucker - dumbass that's how. I don't think Zucker is long for this world with Comcast I don't care what kind of contract he signed. Sad part is he'll probably land at ABC or FOX.