Conan O'Brien became the fifth host of "The Tonight Show" on NBC Monday, and he hopes to put a more youthful, more hip spin on the program. I haven't seen him yet, but I hope to find the time.
The big issue is how O'Brien's only living predecessor is going to fare this fall. Jay Leno is preparing to do another talk show, an weeknightly show at 10 PM Eastern Time on NBC, given to him in part to keep Leno from jumping to another network (now that he's been getting better ratings than he got when Conan O'Brien was announced as the new "Tonight Show" host five years ago) and in part to fill the one-hour 10 PM ET time slot.
All of NBC's drama shows in that slot have failed, and its one reliable drama, "ER," finally sang its swan song after fifteen years this April. Their general programming isn't any better; all but one of the shows premiered on the so-called Peacock Network that premiered in September 2008 are gone.) NBC needs to cut costs, and talk shows are cheaper and easier to produce. NBC still hasn't climbed out of its ratings slump since going from first to worst in 2004.
Their best hope of making that time slot work with a new talk show for Leno is to give it a distinctive image that separates it from just being a prime-time version of "The Tonight Show," otherwise O'Brien will seem redundant. Because if Leno does what he's been doing for the past seventeen years, O'Brien might be the one jumping to another network.
And if Leno doesn't make it the second time around, NBC might want to go the way of Fox and surrender that time slot to one-hour newscasts from local affiliates.
Meanwhile, Jimmy Fallon is getting impressive ratings as the host of "Late Night." I couldn't believe it either.
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