Late-Night Musical Chairs

The dust has settled, and everyone is ready to move forward in the interest of the general public.

No, I'm not talking about health care reform, I'm referring to the deal struck over at NBC. Jay Leno is moving back to "The Tonight Show" after the Winter Olympics are over. The once-proud Peacock Network gave Conan O'Brien and his staff severance pay totalling $45 million, $33 million of which is going to O'Brien.

There are no winners in this sorry affair. NBC first forced Leno into early retirement when his ratings began to slip, and he happily agreed to step aside. Then he used his capital to stay in violation of the agreement inked in 2004 when his ratings began to go back up, creating a sense of contentiousness not seen since Johnny Carson retired and Leno went up against David Letterman for the right to succeed him. Meanwhile, as noted before, O'Brien has been denied the chance to develop "The Tonight Show" in his own persona. As it evolved, a Conan O'Brien-hosted "Tonight Show" would have been different from the Leno version as the Leno version was different from the show in Carson's day.

Ironies abound here. Leno was forced to give up "The Tonight Show" in the interest of NBC's long-term planning for late night, and now his return to that program is a quick fix. The lack of long-term planning on NBC's part involving drama series in the 10 PM Eastern hour forces the network to quickly fill the time slot Leno has just vacated before they can think of planning for the long term. And the quick fixes Jeffrey Zucker was trying to keep NBC afloat in the ratings for prime time a decade ago have created long-term problems for NBC to address, now that the Leno experiment has failed even as NBC's prime time lineup features some of the least impressive shows of recent memory. Is "Parks and Recreation" really that funny?

Leno may have returned to late night in triumph like Napoleon returning from Elba, but Napoleon at least was able to convince enough French soldiers to stand by him at Waterloo. It remains to be seen whether Leno can win back fans who got bored with him during his ill-fated prime time show. As for O'Brien, whose similarly short-lived "Tonight Show" stint ends tonight with his last show, he'll be a free agent this September. And there at least two other networks (CBS isn't one of them, of course) who may be interested in him. Look for Fox, whose efforts to establish a late-night presence have been as unsuccessful as CBS's were during the Pat Sajak era, to come calling for Conan.

Follow The Money

A lot of stories involving money have been floating around the water cooler. Well, the water cooler in my mind, anyway.

First, the NBC late-night fiasco. Late word is that the 11:35 PM -12:35 AM Eastern time slot will not be halved to accommodate Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien. Rather, "The Tonight Show" would be pushed back to 12:05 AM, with Jimmy Fallon at "Late Night" starting at 1:05. NBC had clearly hoped to maximize ratings - and, of course, profits - by re-arranging the late-night schedule to accommodate and retain all three comedians while appeasing affiliates with traditional prime time programming at 10 PM Eastern for lead-ins to local late night news. The network has had its plans thwarted by O'Brien, who has refused to go along with the idea, dismissing it as impugning the integrity of "The Tonight Show" and being unfair to Fallon by pushing his show so deep into the wee small hours of the morning. O'Brien laments that he has not been given enough time to build up an audience because of the network's troubles. But hey, it's all about the money these days, isn't it?

Meanwhile, in Washington, the Obama administration is considering taxes on commercial banks and investment banks that have received federal bailout money from the government - even from those that have paid back their loans - in an effort to recoup the government's infusion of cash at the beginning of the fiscal crisis and compensate for the money the banks lost in the recklessness that led to the events of 9/15. The bank taxes and fees proposed would target bonuses and executive pay and address incurred by the Troubled Assets Recovery Program. The banks don't like this, of course, but President Obama certainly believes it could pay down the deficit, restore fairness in the Wall Street-Main Street paradigm, and, not so coincidentally, improve his standing with voters on economic issues and avoid serious Democratic losses in the midterms.

The attempt to avoid a serious Democratic loss in Massachusetts, meanwhile, continues with leading Democrats sending e-mail after e-mail urging emergency contributions for Martha Coakley's campaign against Republican Scott Brown as she fights for her political life leading up to the special Senate election for Ted Kennedy's seat next Tuesday. I've gotten several such e-mails. Please, if I were interested in spending money on a woman I may not hear from again in a week, I'd go back to dating! :-O

Jay Xed

Late word from NBC is that Jay Leno's prime time talk show has been canceled, and it will air its last show next month. Its time slot will be temporarily filled by Winter Olympics coverage from Vancouver, which will likely result in lower ratings for that slot.

Perhaps they have have some dramas to fill the 10 PM Eastern time slot after the Vancouver Games are done, but NBC still has the aftermath of this failed late-night talk show experiment to sort out. With Leno out of prime time and O'Brien in worse shape by actually still being on the air, and with everyone having acknowledging that Leno should have been left on "The Tonight Show," how does NBC right itself without doing more short-term damage?

Simple - it can't. NBC's troubles with late-night talk began, interestingly enough, with an emphasis at short-term ratings and the expense of long-term thinking. They were in a rush to drop Jay Leno in 2004 when his ratings slipped against Letterman at CBS, but when his ratings improved as it came time for him to relinquish "The Tonight Show" to O'Brien, the network bent over backwards to keep Leno from moving to ABC. They still hoped to keep Conan O'Brien and somehow thought that late-night talk overkill would be the way out of last place in the overall ratings. The damage has been so great from this experiment that, if either comedian chose to leave NBC now, he would re-enter the job market with less heat than before. How is it that ABC is owned by Disney, yet NBC is acting like a Mickey Mouse operation?

Oh yeah, the bottom line. That was actually the best part of Leno's prime time show; it was actually making money for the network, despite its low ratings, because it was so cheap to produce and air. But its poor performance with Mr. Nielsen and company affected the local news reports of the affiliates that followed Jay Leno in numerous regional markets. I'm no media economist, but, if I'm not mistaken, that makes advertising time on NBC in the 10 PM Eastern slot less valuable. in fact, some affiliates had threatened to air the local news at 10 PM Eastern / 9 PM Central and then air Leno's show afterwards, which would have made selling advertising time really difficult for the network.

The idea now is to move Leno to 11:35 Eastern for a half-hour show, followed by O'Brien at 12:05 AM Eastern, with Jimmy Fallon remaining at "Late Night." This is supposedly to keep both Leno and O'Brien and avoid bruised egos, but does NBC do that when they're halving the running times of both the Leno and O'Brien shows? Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the television equivalent of "troubled assets."

Conan the Comedian

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.

Return Of the Nerd

Jimmy Fallon recently started his stint as the host of "Late Night" on NBC, replacing Conan O'Brien, and while the reviews are not in, the description of what Fallon allegedly brings to the job isn't promising. He's said to be injecting his "smart-alecky, nerdy brand of humor to the show. Excuse me, but smart-alecky nerds are the very kids who got beat up in school. Some of those smart-alecky nerds may have even beaten up Jimmy Fallon themselves.

Meanwhile, Conan O'Brien has moved to Los Angels to prepare to take over "The Tonight Show," ending any hope of bringing that program back to New York, where it originated. The fact that Jay Leno is getting a prime-time show of his own might have raised hopes for such a thing, but no, it looks like LA will have both Jay and Conan to be proud of.

And all New York has is Jimmy Fallon.

This is so embarrassing. . . .