I honestly don’t really care about the whole Jay Leno / Conan O’Brien debacle.  I don’t really watch either one, though I’ve obviously seen both hosts in their old and new shows.  In my opinion, NBC is the biggest culprit for creating the mess in the first place 6 years ago, and making idiotic decisions to try to rectify it last year.  Couple it with their abysmal performance as a network each night in primetime, and it was an inevitable disaster.  There was no built in audience lead-in to Jay’s new show, and he didn’t draw stellar ratings in primetime.  Then the affiliates ran the news, and complained that their viewership was down 25% or something.  That’s what Conan had to work with to try to build an audience with his take on The Tonight Show.

I think Conan came out pretty well with his ultimate settlement, and probably will do well in the future. The Late Show with Conan O’Brien was on multi-week renewal cycles for something like the first 3 years, and over the years it got better and better until it had a pretty consistent audience.  I think over time the same would have happened with The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien, but nowdays shows aren’t given time to grow audience.

To me, ultimately it’s Leno that looks the worst here.  NBC might have created the issue, but Leno accepted the deal.  As he said 6 years ago in the video “This show is like a dynasty.  You hold it, and then you hand it off to the next person.  And I don’t want to see all the fighting and who’s better and nasty things back and forth in the press, so right now, here it is, Conan, it’s yours.  See you in 5 years buddy.”  When he tried to stick around with a new show, and the ratings of each became daily news, it made Conan’s job even tougher.  He not only had to compete with Leno’s past ratings on The Tonight Show, but he also had to compete with Leno’s new show every freaking day, despite airing at different times and with (slightly) different formats.

Leno’s like the late night version of Brett Favre… is he retiring?  Is he staying?  What the hell is he doing?  And when NBC decided that it was cheaper to dump Conan for $40 million than get rid of Leno at $150 million (not to mention backing the proven Tonight Show host over the new one), Leno didn’t have any problem saying “Yeah, I’ll take it back.”  He can act like the whole mess was just because of ratings, and what choice did he have, and he has “no animosity” towards Conan as he takes Conan’s show away.  But America understands that he did have a choice.  He could have said no to NBC 6 years ago. He could have chosen to pass the reigns gracefully to Conan as he said 6 years ago and not do his “Tonight Show Lite in Primetime.”  And this Fall, when the whole setup (surprise surprise) went south for both of them, he could have chosen to say “I will step out of the way, let NBC re-juggle their schedule to try to boost ratings for the affiliates, and give Conan the chance he deserves.” But he chose not to do those things, and that’s ultimately why he looks bad.