Jan 13 2010
SMH [Leno, Conan]
(It’s late and I need to wake up early tomorrow… I’m giving myself no more than 10 minutes to write/edit this…)
SMH is Twitter-speak for “shaking my head.” Like when you see that your aunt and uncle are dancing a little bit too enthusiastically at your cousin’s wedding….
Could they have messed up this Leno and Conan thing worse?… Did they give either guy a real chance to succeed?
… I know both will land on their feet. I know both will be fine financially and NBC isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. My only reaction is that the only bad move is to do what is the common wisdom and to push Conan to 12:05. (I’m sure there are other bad moves, but for the sake of argument….)
Best opportunity for Conan: Take a stand on this one and go to Fox. Fox wants Conan bad. He fits into their demo and he attracts a younger audience. He’ll be a star on a net that doesn’t have many outside of the animated ones. (Sorry, Ana Torv.)
I see Fox as a place that Conan might be able to breathe again. As the Tonight Show host he’s fine, but in the way that a 3.78 ERA is fine. He’s not striking guys out and you can tell that he’s forcing it a little bit. Like the creativity that comes with having only a box and a glue gun is gone when you get all the fancy paints. He has too many resources and PAs and people saying that everything is gold, when in the old days he had nothing but low budget comedy.
The drive to create isn’t the same. Like part of the process for making things funny was finding the humor in a carboard cutout and the guy in the $75/day gorilla suit. In a way, it was easier to get a bigger laugh.
Conan will lose part of his audience, but it’s the part that didn’t care in the first place and just hates Dave. He’ll be able to grow with a set of firm roots.
Best opportunity for Leno: Kick Conan to 12:05 and become the king again. Sure- advertisers will abandon the net after 12:04 and Conan will be out of a job as soon as ratings allow him to be fired and it’s financially shot in the head for NBC… but at least Jay wins! (Actually, he probably still loses. His half hour show being a constant reminder of this crappy crappy situation.)
Best opportunity for NBC: Let Leno go to Fox or wherever he wants. Or pay him enough to just stay home. Leno is comfortable but keeping him off the air is a good move for allowing Conan to grow. Maybe it also keeps Conan from becoming the neutered comic he’s starting to look like. Leno, while the lead dog in the race, can’t keep doing this forever. (This is the longest term strategy they can employ, and won’t help people keep their jobs in the short term, and you can probably count on this not happening.)
(Went over by 9 minutes. Will leave unedited.)
