The Jay Leno Show

[Gutboy Barrelhouse]

"Personally, I wouldn't pay $70 to watch him though, ymmv."

A interesting tidbit about Jay Leno, he has never spent even one penny of any of the money he has earned from TV, everything he has (all the cars and homes) comes from his standup and other stuff. 

[LK]

Leno just wants to entertain people. NBC wants to keep him at NBC. It's NBC that is being a dick and Leno who is just grateful for the opportunity to entertain people and probably feels like a shmuck that SOMETHING contractual is keeping him at NBC and dicking over everyone else.

[Grimwell]

I don't think Leno is a bad guy. Heck, I think Letterman is probably the finest arsehole of the bunch in real life (and I think he'd be fun to hang out with too). This mess is a network created fiasco, but I'll even give them an ounce of understanding. TV isn't what it was, and the networks are desperate to find ways to cling to as much money as they can. They should be adapting and dealing with the Internet, etc. as the new reality, but when does any big company ever just admit and adapt to changes? Fighting to cling to the old ways is much more fun.

Hrm, too wordy. Sorry. I'll try again:
I don't watch any of these shows live unless it's an accident. I watch them on the Internet and get to enjoy the best parts thanks to the links of my many friends. 

[Lakov_Sanite]

I like the late show with jimmy fallon in spite of jimmy fallon.  I agree, he's not funny but some of the skits and little games they do on the show can be quite entertaining. It's kind of an odd thing but when he's not the center of the jokes it's a really funny show, good writing and terrible acting perhaps.

[DevilsAdvocate25]

Oh BTW he is coming here at the end of the month but tickets are around $70. Has anyone seen his live stand up and is it worth it?

I saw his stand up act live in Vegas. I got free tickets from a friend who won them on the radio and couldn't go. Jay was hilarious. I didn't like his Late show (I preferred Letterman on television), but when he is doing standup he has perfect timing and can be more explicit. He would tell a few short jokes to get you rolling and then when you couldn't breathe, he would tell a longer one and the punchline would get you right after you caught your breath. It was an overall excellent standup routine.

I don't think I would pay $70 to see it, though. That seems to be the price for real fans. I would say it was worth $40-50.

[Soln]

only host I bother watching is John Stewart

[sickrubik]

I like the late show with jimmy fallon in spite of jimmy fallon.  I agree, he's not funny but some of the skits and little games they do on the show can be quite entertaining. It's kind of an odd thing but when he's not the center of the jokes it's a really funny show, good writing and terrible acting perhaps.

plus, the mother f'n Roots.

[Ookii]

The only late night TV host I even bother to stop and watch is Craig Ferguson on CBS. I find him about 100000000000 x more entertaining than Leno or any of the rest of them.

I'll second that. Craig's show is so wonderfully casual and laid back which lets him be more spontaneous with the comedy. It's a nice departure from the bigger more staged productions. He's sort of the Uncle Floyd of late night. :)

His 1000th show where he did the whole thing with a croc puppet was the funniest shit of all time.

[schild]

Hey, did you hear about this?

Jimmy Kimmel Live last night was amazing.

[Jeff Kelly]

The 1000th episode didn't go down well with the fans however. Obviously some don't like puppets.

Both Conan's and Jimmy Kimmels Take on the whole debacle today have been hilarious.

I always wonder how a big US network can fuck up so badly on a daily basis. I mean has NBC done anything right in the last two years (Well except Chuck)?

Hell even if Leno moves back to 11:30, since they cancelled 5 hours worth of scripted shows to make room for him, they don't have any lead in to Leno, just as they hadn't any lead in for Conan because of Leno.

The big winner will be Fox, when they picl up Conan and make their own late night show. Maybe targeted to a younger demo than both Leno and Letterman which would fit perfectly with the Fox audience.

[pxib]

[Merusk]

The big winner will be Fox, when they picl up Conan and make their own late night show. Maybe targeted to a younger demo than both Leno and Letterman which would fit perfectly with the Fox audience.

The 'younger' Demographic watches Adult Swim.  IIRC, Family Guy and Robot Chicken reruns have been the #1 slot for 18-35 year olds for some time now.  Probably the reason my local FOX affiliate does the double Family Guy thing at 11pm as well.

[Thrawn]

The 'younger' Demographic watches Adult Swim.  IIRC, Family Guy and Robot Chicken reruns have been the #1 slot for 18-35 year olds for some time now.  Probably the reason my local FOX affiliate does the double Family Guy thing at 11pm as well.

We only get local stations and if I watch TV at night weeknights it's 9 - 10 Married with Children, 10 Family Guy or Scubs, 10:30 Scrubs, 11 - 12 Southpark.

The only talk show host I care to watch at all is Craig Ferguson.

[HaemishM]

I always thought Conan would do much better at the 10 pm slot than Leno. Why not do that switcheroo?

[LK]

Just heard Zucker blames all this on Conqn and plans to bench him for 3.5 years if he doesn't play ball. This is going to court.

[Signe]

Will all this open up a spot for another Law & Order?  Maybe "Law & Order:  Central Traffic?"

[Sky]

Law & Order: Late Night with Conan and Jay.

[Evildrider]

Law & Order:  Meter Maid Division.

[Signe]

Oh.  A TV/Ringo post.  That's almost very nearly a cross thread post!  I like those.

[Jayce]

I'm pretty pissed about this. A Conan O'Brien Tonight show got me actually watching it.  It was a little tamer than years past, but I'm tamer too nowadays.

So let me get this straight.  Leno's show was such dreck that it even brought down the shows next to him. To rectify this lack of performance, he gets the Tonight Show back and they send the guy who actually has talent packing. I guess I do get to enjoy the spectacle of Jay tanking (again) since his geriatric audience clearly didn't follow him to 10pm, so what makes anyone think they'd stay up later to see him?

[LK]

No, they keep the Jay Leno show and move it to 11:35, or whatever it's going to be called, but it isn't The Tonight Show.

[Jayce]

This (http://hollywoodinsider.ew.com/2010/01/14/exclusive-conan-obrien-deal-possible-by-weekend/) says that Jay will probably return to the Tonight Show.

The last paragraph is pretty illuminating: The network isn't as troubled by the public perception that they are asshats as much as they are by Conan's jokes about Jay.     Viewers don't matter, only slights to the honour of their buddy Jay.

[Ingmar]

This is popping up all over the internet now seems like:

[Evildrider]

Lawl I had just changed my avatar.   

[Abagadro]

Interesting that Zucker and Conan were at Harvard at the same time. Conan was the head of the Lampoon and Zucker was the head of the Crimson.  I wonder if that isn't playing into this.

[Merusk]

I'm pretty pissed about this. A Conan O'Brien Tonight show got me actually watching it.  It was a little tamer than years past, but I'm tamer too nowadays.

So let me get this straight.  Leno's show was such dreck that it even brought down the shows next to him. To rectify this lack of performance, he gets the Tonight Show back and they send the guy who actually has talent packing. I guess I do get to enjoy the spectacle of Jay tanking (again) since his geriatric audience clearly didn't follow him to 10pm, so what makes anyone think they'd stay up later to see him?

The problem is that even though Leno's 10:00 show sucked, his 11:35 show was #1 for years. Conan was on 3 months before Leno's show even appeared, and he was down in the ratings from day 1.  NBC is using this as part of its reasoning. Leno was beating Dave, Conan wasn't, even without Leno's craptacular lead-in.   Conan has more talent, but people simply weren't watching as the public prefers dreck.

[Jeff Kelly]

That's not entirely accurate.

Letterman is leading in ratings total, Conan was leading in the 18 to 49 demo until the bad Leno lead in started to rub off on him.

Leno was late night king until the end of his Tonight show stint. However you can't blame the mess entirely on Conan.

Leno had 17 years to get where he was and he had the lead in from 5 hours of 10pm drama programming.

The leno show at 10 was so bad ratings wise (an 1.2 average) that Conan and the local affiliates had no lead and thus the affiliates got really nervous and even threatened to jump the NBC ship.

So I think the NBC decision was more of a "kill two birds with one stone" kinda thing. Moving Leno to 11:35 and putting drama shows on at ten might be all they need to improve the ratings at two time slots. Also compared to Conan Leno got the bigger contract with bigger damages should they terminate him early.

So business wise the possibility of losing Conan might be better than losing Leno.

I seriously doubt however that Leno can regain the audiencxe lost during the switch. Once the people are gone they stay gone and NBC doesn't have any worthwile drama to show at 10 until the next season in september so Leno also has no lead in anymore.

So they made a total dumb decision by killing 10pm drama and putting Leno on, made more dumb decisions by shafting Conan and will most likely still lose out in ratings.

[01101010]

Letterman was above Leno for a long time till Leno snagged the Hugh Grant appearance after his "scandal." Then Leno was locked at the top of a crumbling tv show that was built on a pillar of sand to begin with.

With getting up at 5:30 to get to work by 7:30, I have not watched any of those shows since early 2000s (mainly Letterman because Leno just irks me) and only then it was because there was literally nothing on and I needed a TV playing in the background to drown out the screams. Now-a-days its bed by 10/10:30 and pray I can sleep all the way through the night without a chemical supplement.

[schild]

All I know is that I wish Oprah had never gotten the interview with Michael Jackson. That's an empire that needs to go the hell away.

Late night TV sucks outside of The Daily Show and the opening 20 minutes of the Colbert Report, and I hesitate to call those "late."

[fuser]

Hitler Learns Leno Is Moving Back To Late Night

Yeah TMZ was reporting that the deal is done and Jay will be back in the 11:30 slot, so it looks like 22nd is Conan's last show

[01101010]

There are times when I do miss Donahue 

[LK]

One thing that bugs me about Conan is that his monologue jokes always have that pause right before the punchline.

[Jeff Kelly]

Craig Ferguson - as always - today provided the only relevant contribution to the whole Jay Leno vs. Conan O'Brian debacle:

[01101010]

I am starting to think this whole Leno/Conan business IS the script to try and bring people back to late night talk shows.

[Azaroth]

That's pretty much what I've been thinking for the last week.