Profiles in Cowardice

It looks as though the negotiations between NBC and Conan O'Brien will be completed as early as tomorrow, and I couldn't be happier. With the disaster in Haiti, this entire situation doesn't even deserve ranking as a sideshow. However, a couple of things have happened that tick me off and point to the high level of cowardice within NBC's current management. First, Dick Ebersol, the president of NBC Sports, criticized O'Brien and David Letterman for their jokes about Jay Leno, saying that it was "chicken-hearted and gutless to blame a guy you couldn’t beat in the ratings." He went on to say that "what this is really all about is an astounding failure by Conan." Later, he claimed that if O'Brien had only taken his (Ebersol's) advice to water down his comedy to fit the 11:35 p.m. audience, everything would have been fine.

Let's take those arguments, in reverse order. O'Brien DID make his comedy blander and less pointed in order to avoid offending the "Tonight Show" audience. I don't think they ran the Masturbating Bear once during the last seven months, for example. I'd argue that it was removing exactly that edge that made The Tonight Show less entertaining and less interesting. In the last week, O'Brien has taken the gloves off, and his ratings have soared.

Second, the "failure" at 11:35 was hardly Conan's fault alone. NBC knew that putting Jay Leno on at 10 p.m. was going to draw away some of the older audience, and that they might not stay up later to watch O'Brien. If I recall the statistics, the average shortfall in ratings that NBC affiliates suffered by putting Leno on at 10 was 17%. That meant that a 17% lower audience was carrying over into the 11:35 time period for NBC. Of course O'Brien's ratings were lower, because he wasn't fighting on a level playing field. He had to start with the damage caused by The Jay Leno Show.

Before I skip to the first charge by Ebersol, let me bring you another quote, this time from an article last Friday in the New York Times, including a quote from Jeff Zucker, chairman of NBC Universal:

"Mr. Zucker said that it was during a phone call in the first week of January from Jeff Gaspin, NBC Universal’s head of entertainment, that he learned that the network’s affiliates were threatening to pre-empt the Leno show. 'It was becoming tough to deal with,” Mr. Zucker said. “The pressure from the affiliate body was strong.'

Mr. Gaspin’s idea was to move Mr. O’Brien’s show to 12:05 a.m., and give Mr. Leno a half-hour show at 11:35 p.m. 'That’s what he wanted to do, and I said, O.K., give it a shot,' Mr. Zucker said. The shot exploded in their faces."

Ahh, so it's Jeff Gaspin's fault, is it? If all that Zucker was doing was assenting to a plan proposed by his subordinate, why did Zucker go ballistic and threaten to not only pay O'Brien nothing but to keep him off the air for 3 1/2 years? He seems awfully invested in someone else's idea. It sounds more like Zucker is trying to make Gaspin the fall guy. Zucker was the one who came up with the plan to give The Tonight Show to O'Brien in the first place and to give Leno a show at 10 p.m. after Leno wouldn't agree to a show at 8 p.m. If he didn't originate the harebrained scheme of musical chairs starting with moving Leno back to 11:35, he most certainly approved it.

Which brings me to the "chicken-hearted and gutless" remark by Ebersol. Who's more chicken-hearted and gutless in this situation: O'Brien, standing up for himself, or Zucker, hiding behind Gaspin? For that matter, when Ebersol's Winter Olympics coverage loses $100 to $200 million for NBC, which he's said that it's going to do, I wonder who he'll blame or whether Zucker will stand up for him.

Conan O'Brien Rejects NBC--Leno Will Get Back "The Tonight Show"

It looks like NBC is going to do what I suggested in an earlier post, but not because they want to do it. Yesterday, Conan O'Brien basically told NBC to "take a hike" with its plan to move Jay Leno back to 11:35 p.m. for 30 minutes, followed by The Tonight Show at 12:05 a.m. In a heartfelt but very carefully crafted public statement, O'Brien said that by moving The Tonight Show to 12:05 a.m. from a time period where it's been for almost 60 years, it will effectively no longer be The Tonight Show, and he won't be a party to that.

According to NBC, its contract with O'Brien doesn't specify at what time The Tonight Show has to run, so the network is completely within its contractual rights to move the show without having to pay O'Brien his kill fee. However, O'Brien is making the argument (and his lawyers would make the argument if it ever got to court) that having The Tonight Show on after the local news is a multigenerational institution with U.S. television viewers, and that by moving "The Tonight Show" to 12:05 a.m. and putting another entertainment program in front of it, O'Brien's show will be "The Tonight Show" in name only.

The trade press says that all that remains is for NBC to negotiate a cash settlement with O'Brien and an agreement on how long he'll have to stay off the air before he can work for a competitor. It's fairly clear that barring some other major event, O'Brien's last show as the host of The Tonight Show will be February 11th, the same night that "The Jay Leno Show" goes off the air. Leno will take over again as the host of The Tonight Show after the end of the Winter Olympics.

I have to admit that I wasn't a fan of O'Brien's Tonight Show, but I was even less of a fan of Jay Leno, who seems to believe that you can never dumb your talk show down enough for the audience. I'm not happy about the outcome, but NBC (and its acquirer, Comcast) has to be even less happy. No one in negotiations with NBC in the future is going to trust that the network will think through or stand by its decisions.

Leno Moving Back to 11:30 for 30 Minutes?

The New York Times is reporting that NBC is planning to move Jay Leno back to 11:35 p.m. to do a 30-minute show, followed by Conan O'Brien at 12:05 a.m. for an hour, and then Jimmy Fallon at 1:05 a.m. No word on what show gets named what, but I'm betting that O'Brien keeps "The Tonight Show" name and Leno's show remains "The Jay Leno Show". Besides being an act of desperation, NBC's moves smack of more half-steps: They can't remove Conan O'Brien from the Tonight Show without paying him a huge kill fee ($50 million, as I recall), but what can Jay Leno do in 30 minutes? A monologue, perhaps a sketch or comedy bit, but no interviews. O'Brien would start at 12:05 a.m., and Jimmy Fallon would be in Carson Daly's nosebleed territory.

NBC's hope is that moving Leno back to 11:35 p.m. will let them win the first half-hour of late night again against Letterman and Nightline, and give O'Brien a better lead-in, with the goal of keeping viewers from tuning to Letterman for the second half of his show, or to ABC's Jimmy Kimmel. But given NBC's track record, the chances are more likely that Nightline and Letterman will stay on top, the Tonight Show will be even more crippled than it is now, and Late Night will be killed in the ratings.

Why can't NBC simply bite the bullet and put Jay Leno back as the host of the Tonight Show? Pay O'Brien his kill fee and offer him Late Night again, move whatever Jimmy Fallon does to 1:35 a.m., and get rid of Carson Daly. Rather than really fix the problem, NBC's management looks like it's going to make another "bold move" that's really a half-step intended to save money.