Will Leno Hurt Conan?



(image via deadlinehollywooddaily)

Conan O'Brien is far too much of a good man and NBC team player to say anything out loud, but Jay Leno's surprising move to 10 pm on NBC has got to rankle. And it will be interesting to see what David Letterman -- through his surrogates -- has to say about Leno's behavior. Letterman has never forgiven Jay for snatching The Tonight Show. Howard Stern, also, has a refined hatred of Jay Leno -- Stern believes he lifted "Stuttering" John Melendez -- and it will be interesting to see how Howard, who has a tremendous influence over the younger generation of comedians, plays this and if he decides to do Letterman to commiserate. Comedians are an odd and superstitious lot, and for some reason "The Carson Chair" is held in outsize regard.

On the surface, Jay Leno at 10 pm appears to undercut Conan's achievement of the Carson chair. From how it was reported, Jay Leno's 10 pm show will essentially be the same show he is doing now. So, in a sense, Jay Leno is doing the Tonight Show, only an hour and a half earlier.

Okay: We get that Leno is a cash cow. This move makes financial sense, and Jeff Zucker has got to be under tremendous pressure from the bean counters to not lose such a network asset, however unfunny, as Leno. According to Bill Carter of the NYTimes, "Mr. Leno has averaged 4.8 million viewers for his show this year, with a rating of 1.3, or 1.7 million people, in the category of viewers ages 18 to 49, which most advertisers favor." And, bonus (!), Leno at 10 pm daily means more weeks of original programming (46 weeks a year as opposed to 22 to 24 episodes a year of scripted dramas that usually populate the 10 pm slot). There will also be cost savings (scripted dramas cost $15 million a week, Leno's show will cost less than $2 million per week).

In retrospect, Zucker's quixotic decision to move Conan into the Carson chair in May 2009 -- in order, it was said at the time, to dampen questions of succession that plagued Leno-Letterman -- may have been thoroughly misguided. We can also understand why Zucker would like to keep Leno away from competitors, like ABC or Fox. All of that having been said, it presents an awkward position for Conan O'Brien.

As a poster on DeadlineHollywoodDaily writes: "Don’t you see what NBC has done?They’ve changed nothing. Conan still follows Leno."

Exactly.