NBC Exec Dick Ebersol Calls Conan “Failure,” “Gutless” To Blame Leno (Update)

by Steve Krakauer | 9:05 am, January 15th, 2010

» 12 comments

In a surprisingly harsh and candid attack on Conan O’Brien, Chairman of NBCU Sports Dick Ebersol told the New York Times‘ Bill Carter O’Brien was “gutless” to blame Jay Leno, and called him a “failure.”

It’s pure spin, of course, that contradicts the actual reason for these immediate changes. But O’Brien’s almost out the door, so apparently it’s time to kick him on the way.

Carter writes that Ebersol said “the reason for Mr. Leno’s return to NBC’s late-night roster after a short stint in prime time this season was a simple one: disappointing ratings for Conan O’Brien’s ‘Tonight Show.’”

Ebersol said of O’Brien’s jokes this week that it was “chicken-hearted and gutless to blame a guy you couldn’t beat in the ratings,” and “what this is really all about is an astounding failure by Conan.”

Carter gets close to calling BS, but then lets Ebersol spin out of it:

They have previously defended the performance of the show, saying seven months was not a fair shot for Mr. O’Brien to hone his comedic voice at the earlier hour especially in the face of reduced audiences for Mr. Leno’s 10 p.m. show and the late local newscasts that followed it.

Mr. Ebersol labeled that a “specious argument,” saying that for much of the last five years, Mr. Leno had much lower lead-in audiences than Mr. Letterman got at CBS and yet he always won in the ratings.

So let’s get this clear – it is a “specious argument” to say this is all happening because the affiliates are mad? Ok, Dick. But here’s where that theory goes wrong:

According to the initial NYT story, also conveniently written by Bill Carter, here’s the reason for the Leno move:

The late-night discussions at NBC are directly related to pressure that has been brought on NBC by its affiliated stations, which have seen ratings for their 11 p.m. local newscasts plummet this television season because of much-weakened lead-in audiences from the network in the 10 p.m. hour.

Later that day, to Bill Carter (again), NBC called O’Brien “a valued part of our late-night lineup, as he has been for more than 16 years, and is one of the most respected entertainers on television.” Then there was the announcement at TCA by Jeff Zucker, making the Leno move official. Here’s his reason: “While it was performing at acceptable levels for the network, it did not meet our affiliates needs, and we realized we had to make a change.”

But Ebersol ignores all that. No, in his mind, “we bet on the wrong guy.” Obviously, this isn’t what happened. While Conan’s ratings were lower than Jay’s, there was no immediate need to make an 11:30 switch. Instead, while Leno’s ratings were holding at 10pm around where NBC had expected, the affiliates were losing money, and complaining, far more than NBC had anticipated. Some were considering dropping the show altogether. Ahead of the affiliate meeting later this month, and ahead of Ebersol’s Olympics taking place next month, they felt they had to make a 10pm move. And yes, they essentially chose to keep Leno over Conan.

This is fine. Ebersol’s an NBC exec, he has a late night pedigree (wonder what Lorne Michaels thinks of his fellow SNL creator throwing his guy Conan under the bus?), and he’s allowed, or even expected, to spin. But Bill Carter: you’re a reporter, so be a reporter. You know this isn’t true – you’ve written about it several times. But you’re letting NBC use you and the New York Times to further a storyline they’d like out there as Conan continues to bash them publicly and many continue to join Team Conan and call NBC out.

> Update: Team Conan responds to TheWrap.com: “This is the essence of NBC’s problems. Conan O’Brien is losing his job because he didn’t take the comedy notes of a 62-year-old sports producer.”

Meanwhile Letterman may respond directly to Ebersol, after Ebersol called it “professional jealousy” to see the jokes being made by Letterman and others.

• Marketwatch’s Jon Friedman asks, “Why in the world is Zucker still running NBC Universal?”

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Bill Carter, Conan O'Brien, Dick Ebersol, Jay Leno, Late-Night Wars, NBC, New York Times, The Tonight Show

http://www.abramsresearch.com/ Dan Abrams

Steve, do you think they would have made this Tonight Show move if Conan had been knocking it out of the park? Im not saying it was the driving force for the change but you suggest that its not even really a factor. They had to make two choices. 1) what to do with the 10pm hour since Leno’s numbers were not strong enough. 2) what do with Leno if they got rid of the 10 pm hour. They made a choice that he is a stronger Tonight Show host than Conan. That was part of the decision so its not just spin from Ebersol. Its a business and often not a nice one but a business nonetheless. I think Conan is fantastic but to suggest its just spin to say that his numbers were part of the decision here seems off to me.
http://www.nukethefridge.com MartiniShark

There is a major contradiction in all of this in that the network had just recently put out a press-release crowing about Conan’s numbers:

http://tvbythenumbers.com/2010/01/04/conan-beats-dave-with-18-49-viewers-in-4th-quarter/37565

Either they are trying to gloss over the stats or their PR division has not been in contact with Zucker and Ebersol. The underpinning to this entire controversey is that they opted to put Leno at 10:00pm because of the basic fact that his show was cheaper to produce than a 1-hour drama. That affiliates lost money and NBC lost face as a result of their frugality is beyond amusing.
RazorsEdge

Some numbers:

NBC’s local news stations. Their 11 p.m. newscasts lost 19.7% of their overall viewers between November 2008 and November 2009.

Overall viewer loss

Research firm Harmelin Media also sent out a report, noting that NBC was hemorraging young viewers. Their 25- to 54-year-old viewer numbers dropped by an average of 25% from November 2008 to 2009

In all, the newscasts lost a total of 1.8 million viewers, according to the Pew numbers

The Leno Effect

Despite an overall decline of late-night local news viewers, NBC took the biggest hit out of all the broadcast stations. ABC’s 9 percent drop in viewers was less than half of NBC’s, while CBS managed to slightly increase its audience.
Glenn Davis

Sure, if Conan’s numbers were better they probably wouldn’t have cast him aside like this, but it does seem a bit unfair when you consider that Letterman beat Leno for almost two years running after he moved to CBS (and now, there’s barely that much time left until Dave retires) – not to mention they never undermined Jay by giving Johnny Carson a 10 p.m. show right after he started.

Plus, Ebersol was talking about Conan’s refusal to listen to the network over potential changes to give his show a wider appeal – while I don’t doubt this, Conan DID alter his formula from the very beginning to make himself a better fit for 11:30 (ex. no Masturbating Bear), so criticism there also rings a bit hollow.
kimm

We’ll probably never know what the catalyst was, but I work at an NBC affiliate, and our 11PM news has suffered greatly because of the Leno lead-in. Money talks. Affiliates scream.
http://mediaite.com Steve Krakauer

Dan-

I agree, if Conan’s ratings were better, they would have ultimately made the choice to keep him over Leno. But that’s secondary. Ebersol says “what this is really all about is an astounding failure by Conan” and it’s definitely not.

Even NBC has said it’s all about the affiliates and Leno’s bad ratings. He’s blaming the effect and ignoring the cause.
RazorsEdge

Perhaps NBC and its Executives would serve themselves better if they spend more time in public assessing the decision to move Leno. To see Ebersol jump into the ‘noise’ and debate on what NBC is now trying to do won’t help much to getting past this is business-like efficiency/effectivness. It reflects badly on NBC (in my mind) and one could wonder if this ‘nit picking’ and approach to a TV problem is a broader insight to how NBC got to this Leno-Conan situation in the 1st place.

I understand they were not afforded hindsight before Leno to 10pm decision, but that’s where NBC executives are now. Take advantage of the knowledge of what went wrong and learn/build on that. Not pointing fingers at each other. Really, that’s how NBC wants to be viewed?

There are more effective ways for NBC executives to manage the situation while clicking/executing the “magical undo’ button to get back (or close to) to what the lineup looked like before the Leno to 10pm decision.

Unless, this was all a plan to rid themselves of talent costs and while doing, bring attention to draw ratings.
kimm

I’m afraid they’re going to find there is no “magical un-do button.” An increasingly out-of-touch Leno is going to find a fresher, edgier Conan is now his direct competition. I may be wrong, but I seriously doubt Leno will get back his numbers.
kimm

… NBC should have learned CBS’s lesson from Bobby Ewing’s shower scene.
RazorsEdge

HA! Just a dream. That’s was the ‘magical undo” button before there were PC’s!
Cactus

Steve — thanks for pointing this out. I expected that, at some point, NBC would begin a character assassination campaign against Conan as he is obviously slated to, at some point, be competing with Leno. Plus, as soon as he leaves the lot, he’ll be on Letterman and other media outlets bemoaning this entire affair and doubtlessly (and deservedly) bashing the network further.

I think this Ebersol jab is probably just the beginning. To set the stage for Leno “triumphantly” getting his old seat back, Conan must be thoroughly painted as a force of evil… and Bill Carter and others need to see through this plot.
nwjw

So none of this would have happened if Team Conan would have stayed with the show after the initial run.
If you look at the 18-49 demo, they clearly bolted before Jay came on in mid september. http://tvbythenumbers.com/2010/01/13/obrien-might-still-be-at-1135-if-team-conan-had-watched-the-tonight-show/38787#more-38787
Viewership in this demo (Conan’s real demo), show 1/3 left by July, a full 2 months before The Jay Leno show debuted, yet no one seems to want to point that out, including the so called media gurus at Mediaite and TVNewser.
If Conan was that funny, they would have stayed. They didn’t.
NBC messed up by pulling a Letterman by screwing the hired help, but Mediaite doesn’t appear to see it that way. As for Kimmel and Letterman, they are only in this for ratings and money…nothing else!