People of Earth:

In the last few days, I’ve been getting a lot of sympathy calls, and I want to start by making it clear that no one should waste a second feeling sorry for me. For 17 years, I’ve been getting paid to do what I love most and, in a world with real problems, I’ve been absurdly lucky. That said, I’ve been suddenly put in a very public predicament and my bosses are demanding an immediate decision.

Six years ago, I signed a contract with NBC to take over The Tonight Show in June of 2009. Like a lot of us, I grew up watching Johnny Carson every night and the chance to one day sit in that chair has meant everything to me. I worked long and hard to get that opportunity, passed up far more lucrative offers, and since 2004 I have spent literally hundreds of hours thinking of ways to extend the franchise long into the future. It was my mistaken belief that, like my predecessor, I would have the benefit of some time and, just as important, some degree of ratings support from the prime-time schedule. Building a lasting audience at 11:30 is impossible without both.

But sadly, we were never given that chance. After only seven months, with my Tonight Show in its infancy, NBC has decided to react to their terrible difficulties in prime-time by making a change in their long-established late night schedule.

Last Thursday, NBC executives told me they intended to move the Tonight Show to 12:05 to accommodate the Jay Leno Show at 11:35. For 60 years the Tonight Show has aired immediately following the late local news. I sincerely believe that delaying the Tonight Show into the next day to accommodate another comedy program will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting. The Tonight Show at 12:05 simply isn’t the Tonight Show. Also, if I accept this move I will be knocking the Late Night show, which I inherited from David Letterman and passed on to Jimmy Fallon, out of its long-held time slot. That would hurt the other NBC franchise that I love, and it would be unfair to Jimmy.

So it has come to this: I cannot express in words how much I enjoy hosting this program and what an enormous personal disappointment it is for me to consider losing it. My staff and I have worked unbelievably hard and we are very proud of our contribution to the legacy of The Tonight Show. But I cannot participate in what I honestly believe is its destruction. Some people will make the argument that with DVRs and the Internet a time slot doesn’t matter. But with the Tonight Show, I believe nothing could matter more.

There has been speculation about my going to another network but, to set the record straight, I currently have no other offer and honestly have no idea what happens next. My hope is that NBC and I can resolve this quickly so that my staff, crew, and I can do a show we can be proud of, for a company that values our work.

Have a great day and, for the record, I am truly sorry about my hair; it’s always been that way.

Yours,

Conan

(Via Media Decoder at the NYT and HuffPo)

Conan O’Brien’s kiss-off letter to NBC is going to make him a hero, not only to people who started off loving him (and watching him!) and not only to creative types sick of being pushed around by The Man. It’s because he’s been cast as the underdog here, unfairly subject to the failings of Jay Leno both as a stand-alone 10 p.m. show and as a crappy lead-in for the Tonight Show.

Conan’s statement is funny, but principled and resolute, and this will only add to the popular support he’s received as this story has unfolded. It will also add to the Leno backlash.

The Leno backlash has been furious. Despite the fact that he was number one for years in that spot, he seems to have virtually no one on his side. “Team Conan” is now to be everywhere (40,500 results in Google to a whopping 36 for “Team Jay“). There is already an TeamConan on Twitter, and both “Team Conan” and “#TeamConan” are now trending huge on Twitter. Conan won TMZ’s “Team Jay or Team Conan?” poll 60-40%;   our poll, which asked readers to focus on business, not loyalty, went to Conan by an even wider margin at 69% – 31%. Comedian Patton Oswalt thinks Leno is uncreative and doesn’t deserve the spot; even the most cursory of Twitter scans will turn up plentiful, scornful calls for Leno to go away. Even Jerry Seinfeld, who came out in favor NBC, came out in favor of NBC. not Leno. And notably, O’Brien’s letter mentions fairness to Jimmy Fallon and a shared history with David Letterman, but has no kind word for his predecessor.

Leno has GOT to know this. And he’s got to be very, very unhappy about it.  He certainly seems unhappy with it, based on the three shows he’s done since the news broke. Right at the top, in his show on Jan. 7th,  he made it clear that this was not his choice and he was not happy (and he was the first one to invoke Fox with “I hear Fox is beautiful this time of year”).  As the story unfolded, Leno refused to accept the spin that it was a “move” rather than a cancellation — and refused to accept the role of the person benefiting from it all (“To be fair, NBC is working on a solution they say in which all parties would be screwed equally”). Last night, he made his contempt for NBC even more clear, and again cast his lot in with the underdogs (“Supposedly we’re moving to 11:30, but even this is not sure. See, my people are upset, Conan’s people are upset. Hey, NBC said they wanted drama at 10—now they got it!”).

Everyone has spent the past few days wondering, what does Conan want? But the other question that no one has asked is, what does Leno want? He has made the point repeatedly that he left late night at number one — does he really want to come back like this? Does he want to have to fight back against Letterman, fight against Conan at another network, be cast as the bad guy in this drama in which by all accounts, the nervous, trigger-happy suits at NBC are the ones to blame? He’s got money, he’s got fame, he’s got a legacy and he went out at the top. Why on earth would he want to go backwards, with an added plus of being hated for it?

He doesn’t. That’s why he has made it so very clear that this was not his move, this is not what he wants, and it’s definitely not his fault. But that doesn’t matter, because there can only be one hero here, and that’s Conan. Ironically, in dismantling and destroying their late-night franchise, NBC has undermined their star, their hero who was supposed to save the day, who has now been cast as the washed-up has been for whom it wasn’t enough to just fail once.

And that’s what NBC is left with: Thanks to their terrible judgment and collosal lack of vision, they’ve built up the guy they’re kicking out the door and torn down the guy coming in. Way to save late night, you idiots.

Related:
Conan Wins the Hearts and Minds of the Internet [Mashable]

******

Here’s Leno’s monologue from last night. Seem like a fan of NBC to you?

For his part, Jimmy Fallon also referenced the NBC mess, opening with a joke about recent air travel nightmares: “There are so many delays at the airport….my flight was bumped from 12:35 a.m. to 1:05 a.m.” (Fallon spoke about the drama at a New York Times Arts & Leisure weekend panel, saying he was “just glad to have a show.” More here.)


Conan did a later bit where he joked about split-screen showings of him and Leno and showed a funny side-by-side schedule. Truth is the funniest thing in comedy, people! BTW: Both shows were especially strong last night, with Conan hosting Michael Cera, Aziz Ansari (which subsequently trended on Google search, and made me want to buy his upcoming DVD), and OK Go; Fallon hosting Matthew Broderick and Twilight star Ashley Greene, with special guest spot by Jonas Brother Nick Jonas, and a random but awesome Vince Fontaine-like Bandstand-style rap from Jimmy. I will say that of the two shows, Jimmy’s definitely seems to have a much stronger identity. I think how far that show has come has surprised a lot of people. (As the internerds would say, IMHO.) Also, Leno was on last night, hosting NBC’s Brian Williams, but ah well, you can’t catch every late-night show!

There’s no other show on television that draws both nursing moms at 3 a.m. and college students at 3 p.m. And that’s something that the writers, producers and actors who make “Law & Order” consider when putting together scripts and shows. They revel in their series’ universal appeal and mass audience.

The NBC show is celebrating its 20th season which executive producer Dick Wolf said “feels more like five or six.” That’s because not much has changed in the world in the past few decades — the show still bothers both sides when it has controversial episodes that deal with abortion, Wolf joked.

In some ways, though, a lot has changed over that period. Just ask Rene Balcer who acknowledged that storylines from the 90s no longer hold up as well because New York City grew out of the “crack war” the show sprouted inside. Balcer and his team do whatever they can to make the show’s storylines feel real to viewers, famously ripping ideas from the headlines. It’s the educational elements of the show that make Wolf proudest. Cast member S. Epatha Merkerson is particularly satisfied when an episode provokes thought and sparks debate among viewers after the show ends. The panel said they’ve done their job best if people throw their shoes at the TV as the credits roll.

In fact, because the show’s issues are so heated, it’s not uncommon to find actors arguing the merits and morals of scripts at read-throughs. Both Merkerson and Sam Waterston stated that one of the great perks of working for “Law & Order” as opposed to other series is that Wolf and Belcer give them authority to question their roles and lines. Wolf said that actor Steven Hill was the first actor he ever met who would routinely ask for fewer lines.

It’s the creators and actors embracing of their roles as publicly perceived legal experts that make shooting the show so much fun for them. Waterston appears in jury duty video overviews; Wolf can talk about the difficulties that large, media-heavy trials have in finding jurors; and Merkerson is occasionally addressed as “Lieutenant” by strangers. Merkerson admitted that, despite playing the head of police for 16 years, she doesn’t know anything about law. A woman near us, surprised, whispered to her friend, “She’s got to know as much as we do.”

What They Said
“I don’t know many people involved in television who were thrilled to lose the 10:00 hour. No, I didn’t ask for Friday at 8.”
- Dick Wolf questions NBC’s decision to have Jay Leno air five nights a week in primetime

“I have never done anything smart except by backing into it.”
– Sam Waterston said he was at first resistant to the idea of having his character, Jack McCoy, take a promotion but eventually warmed up to the idea

“The show has to be available online so people don’t have to get up to go see it.”
– Does Rene Belcer only know people whose televisions have a crank to power them?

“Fred is a terrific guy and his politics are interesting.”
– Dick Wolf chooses his words like a politician, when talking about actor and politician Fred Thompson

“What I’ve found is each person who came on, they came into a family. We all get along really well.”
– S. Epatha Merkerson lists pretty much everyone she works with as the “person” she likes the most

What We Thought

• Pat Mitchell ran this panel well. She tied together ideas, moved the discussion along, and motioned to play clips with perfect transitions that didn’t interrupt or sidetrack the conversation. She was obviously prepared and seemed to be a veteran of these types of events.
• Belcer said that the show has credited 6,000 actors over the show’s 20 years on the air. Wolf joked that the evidence is in the playbills of every Broadway show. The two seemed happy they could reward so many talented actors with chances to show what they could do, even in small, insignificant parts.
• Wolf wonders how cable shows can afford to make shows at the level they do. He said that the season two finale of “Mad Men” cost $1.6 million to make, which the networks would never sign off on.

PANEL RULES!
Some audience behavior seems to repeat itself panel after panel. We’ll be updating a running list of “PANEL RULES!” that will help ensure that you are not the dweeb of the Panel Nerds.

Panel Nerds don’t like… Look Unlikes
You think that Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr. resembles the character of Jack McCoy. You even suggest that Vance got elected because the public agrees with this comparison. Unfortunately for you – and your question – Waterston doesn’t see the resemblance. We’re just happy you didn’t tell Dick Wolf he looked like Nathan Lane.