Turns out nobody is happy about last winter’s late-night TV shake-up — not even the winner. “Conan got screwed. I got screwed,” Jay Leno told Joy Behar in the green room of The Tonight Show before Tuesday’s taping. The whole backstage conversation was videotaped by Behar as part of a behind-the-scenes video blog she was doing for HLN. In a nutshell: Leno believes both he and Conan O’Brien were “treated terribly” by NBC last January, when the network sent O’Brien packing and restored Leno as host of The Tonight Show. “This is TV,” Leno philosophizes during his pre-show snuggle with Behar on the green room sofa. “The reason show business pays a lot of money is so when you get screwed you’ve got something left over.” (See clip embedded after the jump.)
Is he right, Pop Watchers? Did Leno get as screwed as Conan? Or is he the one who came out on top?
OH CRY ME A RIVER. I’M SO SORRY, FOR YOU, MILLIONAIRE.
If he was JUST a millionaire he would probably cry himself to sleep. Let us not kid ourselves about how much money Leno really has.
Conan isn’t broke either so I’m not shedding any tears for him either. They’re both sitting very pretty right now. No worries.
Yes, relativism is always such a strong argument. If someone has more money than me, after all, any “problem” they have isn’t *really* a problem.
Yep!
That is correct, Onan. Particulary if you’re a millionaire. Just take your money and SHUT UP.
Yeah, no one is buying your bullsh1t, Leno.
Didn’t you guys read what Leno said:
“The reason show business pays a lot of money is so when you get screwed you’ve got something left over.”
He knows the waters.
Seriously! What a whiney creep. And Conan is the one who was screwed over. Leno has exactly what he had before.
C’mon Jay, do you want us to call the WAHHHH-mbulance for you???? Don’t try to fool us into thinking that you were a victim here… you still have a job, the job that you AGREED to pass on (not buying that you were forced out either), and had 5 years to figure out something else to do, and then when your “experiment” failed miserably – thereby causing the downfall of rating to local news broadcasts as well as the Tonight show, you and NBC go smarmy and classless trying to put the blame on Conan & co…. I get the business decision aspect, but do not for once think that most of us are easily fooled into believing that you are a victim… There’s only one victim here, everyone associated with Conan’s Tonight show…..
How are his ratings btw?
Really good – close to 5 million a night.
No, nowhere near 5 mill a night. Barely a scratch above Conan’s in the demos which is all the network/advertisers care about. He is down to beating letterman by about 10 000 viewers. He’s closer to 3 mill a night.
He is winning, but his numbers are down from where they once were, especially in the demo. So, “really good” is a relative term.
I never really thought Leno was the bad guy in this situation.
That’s because you live on another planet. He said he’d retire. So you do it, and not ruin someone else’s life (Conan).
Bad ratings “ruined” Conan on the Tonight Show. Don’t cry for him, honey; he sure wouldn’t do it for you. $40m heals all wounds.
If Conan’s ratings were “bad” (and they weren’t bad when he first took over), it’s because his lead-in (the local news) was taking a beating in the ratings. And the reason the local news were down so much in the ratings was because of their lead-in – the mess that was the Jay Leno show. Leno needs to shut up about this once and for all. It’s tough to feel sorry for him. And, boy, is he sure lining up the big guests now that he’s back – Joy Behar! Woohoo!
What you do not know or conveniently forgot is that Leno never wanted to retire. NBC told him that Conon would replace him in five years. Johnny Carson had the Tonight Show for over thirty years. It was not Leno who ruined Conon’s life. It was a combination of NBC and Conan himself. He foolishly thought he could replace Jay and have the same ratings. I, and many others, watched Conan the first week he was on the Tonight Show and quit watching after that. Leno has not been the bad guy. If you had listened Jay asked NBC to release him from his contract. He said the ten o’clock show would not work. NBC was afraid Leno would go to another network. And they were probably right. Jay Leno never intended to retire. He enjoys what he does too much. Perhaps you should see if you can get a ticket to another planet, or maybe the moon.
Ray,
Blaming this on Conan is just silly. Jay struggled when he started too, and Carson partisans were truly scathing about the change. When Letterman launched, he destroyed Jay for a while.
NBC is the one behind this mess: to keep Conan a few years ago, they had to offer him the Tonight Show. Then they wanted to keep Leno too, so they created the 10 pm debacle. Then they switched it all up again after it all failed.
From a rating standpoint (NBC’s main interest), they probably made the right decision in the end. But just as with Letterman, Conan is likely to land on his feet at another network with a ton of goodwill from viewers and a great opportunity. And yet another network will get a good shot at carving viewers away from the Tonight Show, complete with a host trained at NBC.
THANK YOU — LENO IS NOT THE BAD GUY IN THIS SITUATION. NBC SCREWED HIM OVER FIRST FIVE YEARS AGO BY FORCING HIM TO RETIRE>
I agree with you baj. He was in the middle that’s all, plain and simple.
Of COURSE Jay’s right. It’s all Jeff Zucker’s fault. I’m tired of Jay getting blamed for all this. Zucker asked him to leave the “Tonight Show” when he was #1. Stupid. I love Conan too but he couldn’t pull in the ratings. They should’ve let him go to Fox in ’04 and none of this would’ve happened.
I agree so much with this. Jay is the villain in the public’s eye. Because of the way NBC went about with the late night fiasco, Jay got screwed by being the scapegoat in the public eye. Zucker has driven NBC into the ground.
agreed with both of you.
Only Conan did the classy thing. He could have used Jay’s justifications and bumped Fallon and Carson in a bad way. Jay obviously had alot of time to calculate the risks before he jumped on board the “resign from Late Night” bandwagon to pursue primetime fortune and glory. It backfired! He conspired to get his old spot back with a “F** ‘em” attitude about his other late night colleagues.
you realize Jay came back with 10 oclock programming people wanted to watch like law and order, and NOT having a lead in show like the Jay leno show at ten pm.
If conan had had top notch 10pm programming to lead into his show, his ratings would be far better. NBC decided to keep Jay at 10. Jay as part of his master plan tanked terribly at ten to force them to get rid of Conan and put him back at ten pm. And the rest is now TV history. (I admit I don’t know what Jay’s master plan was but he had 5 years to think of one So I’m extropolating from the facts.)
oops! I meant “put jay back at 11:35pm” not back at ten pm.
And how exactly did Leno get screwed? He never wanted to leave the tonight show, publically said he wanted to go back and he got the show back… he is only saying he got screwed because he got some bad press…
Yeah, I don’t understand how he got “screwed” either. He was never off TV, he just wasn’t on the Tonight Show for a few months. He got exactly what he wanted in the end. Boo hoo?
Although I don’t have any personal sympathy for Conan (he’s fine and he’ll bounce back!) I think he got royally screwed in this situation. I miss him being on TV (yes, I did watch him every night,) and I feel badly for his staff.
Because technically he was fired he’s spinning that technicality to make himself look better. It is fooling noone cos in no way shape or form has Leno been screwed
Jay should have grown some balls when NBC told him of their plans to give Conan the show in 2009. Why didn’t he challenge them and say, “Why would you want to take me off the show when I’m number one?” But he just sat back and said, “I’ll retire” when he really didn’t want to. NBC is stupid for being the main cause of the whole fiasco, but Leno should have had more business sense.
Leno was out no matter what he said. NBC, after firing the guy, would not let him out of his remaining contract so he could find employment elsewhere. That he has remained employed is a testament to his business sense – not the contrary.
Leno claims to pay his bills with his stand up gigs around the USA. NBC couldn’t have stopped him from doing stand up any more than they can stop Conan from doing live shows around the USA. NBC stated they kept jay at 10 because they didn’t want anyone else to get him
Exactly…he AGREED TO RETIRE, then didn’t have the decency to actually live up to his agreement. He screwed Conan, with Zucker’s complicity. I hope Coco laughs all the way to the bank!
If he had ‘agreed to retire’ when his was the #1 show in late-night then that would indeed be a case of Leno needing better business sense.
I blame more NBC than Jay or Conan.
They are just pawns of the network.
THe network could have easily gotten rid of one of them, but they got greedy and decided to keep both. From that point on, a failure was inevitable.
@Greg – so right. Incredibly poor decision making on NBC’s part, from a PR point of view anyway, motivated by greed. Not sure if their bottom line has been impacted negatively… I believe the affiliates are happy.
Jay may have been pulling in the ratings, but in my eyes quantity never trumps quality. Just because a lot of people watch him does not make him funny. Conan has and always will be funnier even on an off night.
Totes.
LCD, lowest common denominator. That’s why Leno does well. You actually have some intelligence to appreciate O’Brien.
I always equated LCD with “The Hills” watchers. Don’t think Leno shares the same viewers. IMO Leno appeals more or less to older viewers, who have senses of humor and buying power. Just different than Conan’s. Room for all; something to buy for everyone.
Too bad all of you Conan lovers didn’t actually WATCH the show when he was on it. Oh, maybe you did, but there weren’t enough of you to justify keeping him on! Stop whining about Conan; he’s laughing all the way to the bank.
Well many people watched via the internet, but that doesn’t count in the ratings.
They did. Nielson is a fkd up ratings system that doesnt actually record everyone. Its outdated and they need a new accurate system. Conan was a hir length behind Letterman its not like he was a ratings disaster.
Jay has come out of this looking like the bad guy, but he’s far far from “screwed.”
No only Conan got “screwed”! you still have a job Leno!
How did Jay get screwed? He got his own job back. STFU already!
Unless they’ve changed the definition of “getting screwed” to mean “getting exactly what you want”, how did Jay get screwed at all?!
Conan straight up got fired and you know what–people get fired from crappy jobs every day. Conan got fired from an awesome job. Ya, he gets the money–but i don’t think that makes it suck any less for him.
My mom told me this years ago, “as long as you work for someone and they pay your salary don’t bad mouth them, IF you quit say what ever you wish to say.”
NBC screwed 2 things: Conan and itself. I’d like to see what it’ll scramble to do when Leno REALLY retires. Install Fallon? I don’t think so. The Tonight Show will meet its end. Talk about not planning for the future.
Uh…how did Leno get screwed?? It is what it is. You can’t make it look differently now. Only one host and all their staff got screwed out of work. I can’t even stand to look at Leno’s face anymore. Coward.
I can’t believe Jay Leno is trying to act like he got screwed by the network. WTF? He didn’t get screwed, he got exactly what he wanted. What a putz!