LianneFARBES

Holy mother of……what a MESS this thing is right???  In case you have been under a rock, NBC has decided to move Jay Leno OUT of primetime (a space he NEVER should have been in to begin with) and into his own half hour comedy show immediately following the local news.  Why?  Because the local affiliates were not happy with the lead in numbers.  Jay should have just retired, and honestly…when he decided NOT to go I kinda had a feeling that something was gonna pop off.  This decision has set off a ripple effect of massive proportions on the status of the rest of the late night shows.  Namely Conan O’Brien and Jimmy Fallon.

Now, I have never been a huge fan of Conan’s all that much (not a religious watcher) but I admit he is a helluva writer with some seriously funny stuff under his belt.  Not only that, but he has been a faithful soldier for the NBC network for YEARS.  So you have to admit,  NBC is putting the screws to him but good.  If you are not familiar, here is the scenario:  How would you feel if you:  Got promoted, you knew about it 6 years ahead of time, you accepted the offer, the time came for you to assume your new role, you uprooted your staff and family and moved across the country, then 7 months later through no fault of your own…you have been told by your bosses that they made a poor decision in moving your predecessor to that other position and now your position will be changing to make room for your predecessor to have a piece of your job and if you don’t agree, your fired. Foul, right?  Conan had this to say…

“Last Thursday, NBC executives told me they intended to move the Tonight Show to 12:05 to accommodate the Jay Leno Show at 11:35. For 60 years the Tonight Show has aired immediately following the late local news. I sincerely believe that delaying the Tonight Show into the next day to accommodate another comedy program will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting. The Tonight Show at 12:05 simply isn’t the Tonight Show. Also, if I accept this move I will be knocking the Late Night show, which I inherited from David Letterman and passed on to Jimmy Fallon, out of its long-held time slot. That would hurt the other NBC franchise that I love, and it would be unfair to Jimmy.

So it has come to this: I cannot express in words how much I enjoy hosting this program and what an enormous personal disappointment it is for me to consider losing it. My staff and I have worked unbelievably hard and we are very proud of our contribution to the legacy of The Tonight Show. But I cannot participate in what I honestly believe is its destruction. Some people will make the argument that with DVRs and the Internet a time slot doesn’t matter. But with the Tonight Show, I believe nothing could matter more.”

Now after this well thought out statement [CNN], if Jay Leno has ANY decency he will just fade out.  Because although I hadn’t thought of it all that much previously….having the Tonight Show on after midnight effective makes it the Tomorrow Show and that has got to be the stupidest thing ever. I heard that Conan’s contract only states that he would be the host of the “Tonight Show” and it doesn’t stipulate any start time (11:35 vs. 12:05, which may be how NBC would be able to wiggle out of their deal with him).  NBC (incredibly) seems unaware that if this goes down, they would be killing ending the longest running late night show in the history of broadcasting. Why doesn’t the brass at NBC see that?  Ridiculous.  If Leno cares anything about that (which, I suspect he does I think he was waiting to see what Conan was going to do) he will fade and let O’Brien have his turn with the franchise. And poor Jimmy Fallon, he’s just happy to be in the game – truth be told, I like his show better than any of the others but maybe that’s just because I appreciate his humor more.  Now that Conan has made his statement, it will be interesting to see how this will pan out.

Lianne Farbes is the Head of the US Edition of HelloCotton an online social platform for discovering and sharing women’s blog content. She also writes for several online publications, she is a Beauty Expert, Social Media enthusiast, Project Manager, Web 2.0 cheerleader and she is always online in one form or another. Follow her on Twitter @LianneFarbes, @Hellocotton and friend her through any of her social profiles here and here

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Tags: Conan O'Brien, Jay Leno, Jimmy Fallon, Television, The Tonight Show