Bill Carter's book on the Leno/Conan mess

After reading this I thought a couple things:

1) Conan doesn't come off very well either
2) NBC's plan of having Leno do a half-hour show at 11:30 and then Conan does his hour might have been a good one. I thought the problem with Conan anywhere between 11-12 is that he loses much of his audience to Stewart-Colbert. I guess we will see when Conan comes back at 11 on TBS.

 

I didn't think the Leno/Conan solution was a bad one but Conan was right when he said it wouldn't be The Tonight Show anymore. It'd essentially be The Tomorrow Show. (With apologies to the late, great Tom Snyder and his EXCELLENT show from the 1970s.)

 

Seems pretty clear NBC forgot rule No. 1 throughout the whole mess: What makes the most sense.
- they worried about losing Conan and signed the deal to "retire" the long-time no. 1 host in five years.
- worried about having Leno go somewhere else when he left Tonight, they hatched the 10 p.m. scheme.
- worried about having to pay off Leno, or Conan, or both - they tried to pitch the half-hour Leno show.
If they just operated with a little bit of confidence in one or both of their hosts instead of being more concerned about covering their asses they would have at most made only ONE bad decision. Instead they made at least five.

 

I don't quite get why Conan would feel that strongly about "The Tonight Show" franchise. It isn't what it used to be, just like the CBS Evening News isn't what it was when it was Walter Cronkite's show. Those TV institutions will never be what they were in a new media world.

I could understand Letterman's attachment to it, based on his worship of Carson and the fact that he's said repeatedly the greatest moment of his life was when he first appeared on the show and Carson gave him his seal of approval. Plus Letterman is old enough to remember the days when Carson's show dictated the next day's water cooler talk and Johnny was also the arbiter of cool.

On one hand, Conan is devoted to the legacy of The Tonight Show; on the other hand, he's doing a show on TBS that leads into George Lopez, which is all about as untraditional as it gets.

 

Maybe. But I'll say this: I've bought at least three books in recent years -- that I wouldn't have bought otherwise, I mean -- because I read the excerpt in SI and it hooked me enough to buy it. (One was Bowden's book on the 1958 NFL championship, I recall.)

As a reader, I love excerpts. Sure, sometimes I'll read an excerpt and say, "Well, I'm good. I read what I need to read of it." But sometimes I'll read one and say, "Man, I gotta read more of this."

 

Conan acted like a baby when NBC wanted to move him back a half-hour as a possible solution to the Leno problem. I see he had no such qualms in pushing back George Lopez at TBS. Frankly, I don't care for Conan or George Lopez. I think Conan will to well in the ratings very early but after everything settles down, Leno will top Conan and Letterman in the ratings.

 

I think Conan "bent" enough when the said Leno would take the 10 p.m. spot. What's the point of getting the Tonight Show if Leno is still going to be in front of you? If they cancelled Leno but kept him under contract to see how Conan would do without Leno in front of him I don't think he would have had as big of a problem with the deal.

 

Sounds good, but not true.

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/how-the-conan-obrien-tbs-deal-happened/

 

I hope there's some sort of post-script in the book that touches on Zucker's firing, and how this might've affected the tone of the NBC/Comcast talks.

I was also fascinated by "The Late Shift" and enjoyed "Desperate Networks," so I'll likely pick this up as well. The players I'm most interested in hearing more from are Letterman and his people, actually. He did some gleeful kicking of this drama when it was playing out and has a unique perspective on the whole mess.

 

I hate to think this way, but I have to imagine Lopez has a catch. Why would he so willingly move back? What's in it for him?

 

Lopez was out on an island with his show. With Conan as a lead-in, people might purposefully switch to TBS at 11.

The odd thing is - both the shows are shot in L.A. Figure Lopez will be behind Leno, Conan, and Kimmell (at least) for guests.

 

I finally read Late Shift after the most recent late night fallout and I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m the only person who has a (slightly) better impression of Leno after reading the book. If anything, Leno seemed childlike and naïve and it was his battleax of a manager that cost Letterman the Tonight Show. And, if Dave had spoken up about his desire for the show from the get-go, the job probably would have been his with Leno joining the fray at CBS. My question after reading the book: Why does nobody see how classless Letterman acted when he basically got NBC to agree to firing Leno and giving him Tonight after all? He “pulled a Leno” before Leno did so himself with Conan. Am I completely alone in thinking this?