Leno Confirms His Return To Tonight Show: “I Have Chosen To Stay on the Titanic”

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by Rachel Sklar | 11:27 pm, January 21st, 2010

» 5 comments

I feel like I must begin this post with a disclaimer: I’ve never been a Jay Leno hater, or a Conan O’Brien nut. Always liked and enjoyed Conan, often chuckled at Jay despite the uncompromising edict from the cool kids that he was terrible and lame and hackey. So if it seems from my various writings that I’m biased in this fight, please understand — it has nothing to do with how funny I think Jay Leno is. It’s that he’s been so damn disingenuous.

It’s not my word, it’s from WaPo’s Tom Shales — but damned if it isn’t perfect. Shales used that word to describe Leno’s statement the other night, in which Leno retold the events of the past four years, with his own spin. For example, this is how Leno described agreeing to take back the Tonight Show:

“They come back to me and they say if [Conan] decides to walk and doesn’t want to do it, do you want the show back? ‘Yeah, I’ll take the show back. If that’s what he wants to do. This way, we keep our people working, fine.’”

As we all know, Jay Leno could have gone anywhere after his NBC deal was done in 2009. The anywhere he chose to go was NBC. It has subsequently been revealed that Leno’s contract would have been even more expensive to break than Conan’s. So if NBC wanted to cancel Leno’s 10 p.m. show, they had to have offered Leno something else that he wanted.

Only one person was pushed out of NBC, and that was Conan. Leno had ample opportunity to speak out, make a stand, make a choice. Not doing anything, so he ended up back in that chair, was a choice. Of all the people in this scenario, Jay Leno was the one with the most options.

So that’s why tonight’s brief update about the changing (back) of the guard at NBC was so…disingenuous.

“Folks – NBC and Conan O’Brien made an announcement earlier today. As many of you know, Conan is leaving the network, his final show airs tomorrow night…I have chosen to stay on the Titanic. I don’t believe the iceberg is that big. This ship will never sink!

Apparently we will be back on the Tonight Show March 1st after the Olympics. So that’s where we are.”

I repeat: This is the decision Jay Leno made, about the option he wanted. For him to present even for a moment that was obliging anyone else or got a raw deal is ridiculous — and, disingenuous.

But here’s something that wasn’t disingenuous: He didn’t say anything nice about Conan O’Brien.

Video below.

Oh also, some news: Leno is reported have just been booked to headline the White House Correspondents Dinner. Very smart counter-programming, that.

Conan Leno, Conan O'Brien, Jay Leno, Late-Night Wars, Leno NBC, Tonight Show

m

This was all Leno’s fault. Leno’s got cars, Conan’s got kids.
larry.wayne

Yeah, hopefully Conan will be able to feed his children with that $30 million he is getting to leave. Please, don’t use the Latrelle Sprewell argument here. These are all very rich men with enormous egos. Conan forced NBC’s hand 5 years ago and now Leno is doing the same. Strip your emotion out of this and realize that there are no victims here.
J Baustian

What it all comes down to is this: Conan is not as funny as Leno. That’s not my opinion, it’s the opinion of the American viewing public. If they liked Conan, he would not be leaving.
Facebook User

Are you kidding?! “Conan is not as funny as Leno?!” GTFO with that noise, seriously. The main fault lies with NBC, secondary fault lies, for sure, with Leno. Conan didn’t want this – no one did, really. It was a very, very bad business decision and all Conan did was thrown down some smart plays within the constraints of NBC’s rule book. The truth here is, the public DOES like Conan. He was NOT given a fair chance to run with The Tonight Show. They would rather pay a small penance in getting rid of Conan than risk a HUGE payout with Leno. NBC made a terrible decision in giving Leno a prime time spot, now they’re eating crow because they know Leno’s ratings will tank to Letterman, who will regain the #1 spot. NBC’s a laughing stock, and that truly is a shame. It’s all about money. Always has been, always will be. If the people truly had their say, Leno would NEVER have gotten a prime time spot and Conan wouldn’t be going anywhere.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Chris-Matthews/671485677 Chris Matthews

The primary fault for this lies with NBC/Universal. They’re the ones that caused all this to begin with. If they had just let Leno go, instead of trying to keep him and Conan, Conan would still have a gig. The secondary blame goes to Leno. If he had simply retired, as he publicly said he was going to do and not threatened to go to compete with Conan, the 10pm fiasco that was “The Jay Leno Show” would not have killed the rating for local affiliate news beoadcasts, which ultimately affected Conan’s ratings.

People seem to forget that it took Leno two years, and Hugh Grant getting caught with Divine Brown, for him to go up in the ratings. Conan got 7 months, all the while the spectre of Jay Leno was always there at 10pm. The sad part of this is, ironically, Conan’s ratings jumped up 60% during all this mess. And his show has been on fire the past two weeks.

The saying rings true: The most dangerous thing is a comic with a mic, an audience, and nothing to lose.