Conan O’Brien draws his sword on 60 Minutes this week. Set your DVRs!
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/30/arts/television/30conan.html
I only saw the last half! Anything interesting happen in the first?
Other then desperately trying to stay relative not much. He was blaming everyone but himself for what happened to him. And kindly forgetting that Leno is not only beating his ratings but that of Letterman to just like he did before.
^ I don’t think that’s quite true. Sure, Conan expressed some hurt and resentment over the way he was treated by NBC and rightly so. Leno and the network publicly promised him The Tonight Show years ago. They made the change, Leno whined about being forced out but was still given his own show in primetime, Conan was only given six months to prove himself in the 11:35 timeslot, and in the end it was cheaper for the network to cave to Leno and kick Conan out. Wouldn’t you be a bit annoyed if your family, your show’s crew and their families, uprooted their whole lives to move across the country for a job they were promised only to have it taken away not even a year later?
I know for networks it’s all about ratings and advertising dollars but maybe now that Conan has a cable show, he’ll be allowed to take some risks and put together a unique and creative show he can be proud of.
Actually, Conan’s Tonight Show was doing perfectly great, much better than Letterman, certainly better than Leno previously or currently. Conan’s ratings only took a dip when Leno’s prime time show started 3 month later. The Jay Leno show was a terrible lead in and people simply didn’t bother to stay at NBC for that pile. The poor lead in resulted in the slump of Conan’s ratings.
And what did NBC do to resolve the problem? They gave the show back to Leno, the guy that ruined it in the first place.
if all NBC wants is to have better ratings than Letterman, it isn’t that hard to do. Letterman was once fresh and brilliant, but for the past few years the late show has become very formulaic, even the interviews feels very awkward. It’s similar to people’s complaints with Ebert, Letterman simply feels out of touch the past few years. The best Late Shows for the last year are actually when he went all out on Leno.
All NBC had to do is put a decent show in prime time, and leave time for the affiliates to run their local news. And they can have Leno, Conan, heck they can have Mencia running the 11:30 spot and have better ratings than Letterman. But they had to ruin it for everyone. So what if the new Leno show is beating Letterman? The median age for ‘Tonight Show’ viewers used to be 46 with Conan, now it is 56 with Jay.
I just watched. I wonder if NBC lawyers will give him grief because he walked or even crossed the “no disparaging remarks” line a few times.
I wish I could watch TBS when he starts, but I cut my cable service to save money.
Other than that, the canal story made me sad.
Thanks for the links Hansioux.