Aware of the fact that yesterday's post may have sounded more pro-Leno than I would have liked, my intent for today was to talk up Conan a bit, try to balance things a bit. As I said yesterday, I don't watch the late night talk shows much because I don't find them all that amusing. If you do, good for you. I'm happy for you. I've seen Leno and Conan be amusing away from the Tonight Show and I feel that they are more entertaining away from the show. The format seems to control them more than they control the format.
I had planned to go into more detail than that but, really, not watching the shows, that's all I've got. Mark Evanier knows more about these things and broke down the whole thing much better than I could, going back to before Johnny Carson retired. so read that instead: http://www.newsfromme.com/archives/2010_01_17.html#018381
While I see nothing to indicate the deal is done at this moment, it's possibly a matter of minutes before it's officially announced that Conan has left NBC and Jay is back in charge of the Tonight Show. The last I read stated that Conan would get paid $30 million and his non-compete clause would be up by the fall. The details may change but that sounds done.
If you think Conan got hosed in this whole deal, you may be right. Or not. This was a matter of simple ratings not getting it done. If Conan was getting a monster rating, none of this happens. I'll close on another nugget of wisdom from Mr. Evanier: 'You know, if everyone who's now behind Conan O'Brien had been watching his show at 11:35, he'd still have it.'
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment