Jay Leno back to old timeslot?

[bobalina77]

Craig Ferguson is the best of all of them.

Heck yeah! Even my parents think he's hilarious! What I like about Craig and Conan is how random they are.. I'm a huge fan of random humour. Conan reminds me of my best guy friend from highschool.. same sense of humour.

[soxxy]

NBC confirms: Jay out at 10 p.m. slot beginning February 12

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.co...n-february/?hp

The most likely scenario is putting Jay at 12:05 a.m. (after the Olympics are over) and Conan starting at 12:35, but it's not yet confirmed.

[Jayar]

Everybody keeps talking about how this affects Conan. But what about Jimmy Fallon? Will Jimmy be unemployed because of Leno?

[genevieve]

Depends on what they do with Conan. I think people care more about Conan because he has been in place longer and should be treated as a valuable property by NBC - it will be quite a slam to him to put him back as 12:35am IMO. Jimmy Fallon's only been on the job for a few months, and I haven't heard anything about his show's ratings - only that it's so-so entertainment. I don't think it would have much impact to replace Jimmy Fallon - except to Fallon himself, of course.

If they're really looking to kick O'Brien back to 12:35, I hope he bolts for another network. That's really shady.

[libby]

Craig Ferguson is the best of all of them.

ITA. For some reason that I can't explain, his yodeling shark puppet makes me laugh so hard I actually disturb the neighbors.

[soxxy]

ITA. For some reason that I can't explain, his yodeling shark puppet makes me laugh so hard I actually disturb the neighbors.

And ITA. I start laughing with anticipation when he takes the stage. There's something about him I can't put into words.

[genevieve]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100110/...tv/us_nbc_leno

Per this, the plan is to keep Leno, O'Brien and Fallon, only giving Leno a half hour (just a monologue?) and moving O'Brien and Fallon 30 minutes later for each. I still think Conan would be smart to shop around and see if another network will give him a better 11:30pm deal.

I thought this was interesting:

the network is waiting to hear if Leno and "Tonight" host Conan O'Brien accept its new late-night TV plans.

Doesn't look like they're asking Fallon's opinion on it - which makes sense given his newness in the talk show game.

[Jubak]

I've never been able to tolerate Conan - reminds me of too many frat boys I've known. I much prefer Jay, but always have found other channels to watch at 10pm. I will be happy to see him back where he rightfully belongs.

My opinion, the original switch was a "New Coke" moment. No one wanted it or needed it. I too, feel sorry for Jimmy Fallon, not that I'm up watching him, as he's proabably going to be the sacrificial lamb.

[skatesindreams]

It's unfortunate that they feel the need to "demote" Jay to monologue-only.
He handles guests better than any of the others.

NBC should admit that this was a hare-brained idea; and return to the old-schedule, with generous "incentives", if necessary.
It is ridiculous that they don't seem to have had a "contingency plan" in place to address the possible failure of the "grand experiment".

[uyeahu]

I actually think Fallon's new show is a better fit for 10:30 than Conan. Visually it's just a much brighter show. Conan's set is too blue and too dark and just feel's like late night. If I were Conan I'd just retire from late night and go back to writing or look into other opportunities if they tried to shove my show back a half hour.

Jay could retire from television tomorrow and I wouldn't miss him. I wouldn't even notice his absence.

[Lacey]

Well, they're saying the plan is for Jay's 35 at 11:30, Conan an hour at midnight, and then Fallon because that is the path of least resistance, fewer lawsuits. We'll see where all of this falls when the dust settles. The shame of it is that they want everyone to agree to the switch right away, when Conan and Fallon should be allowed time to shop around.

[mysticchic]

I want to thank NBC for this.

[Kruss]

This just sucks - Leno is the one who made noise about retiring. Plans were made, Conan was named successor, and then Leno changes his mind? Wah wah...he should have stuck to retiring and doing something else.

Sorry, but this sucks for Conan and I wouldn't blame him if he's pissed. If he jumps ship, so do I.

[soxxy]

This just sucks - Leno is the one who made noise about retiring. Plans were made, Conan was named successor, and then Leno changes his mind? Wah wah...he should have stuck to retiring and doing something else.

Sorry, but this sucks for Conan and I wouldn't blame him if he's pissed. If he jumps ship, so do I.

Not defending Leno or NBC at all, but something had to be done to satisfy the affiliates; they count on a big audience for their 11 p.m. newscasts and something had to be done. I'm surprised the "experiment" lasted this long, frankly.

[missflick]

The good news is that NBC is calling for more scripted dramas/comedies/dramedies. Which hopefully, it they are good and are successes, becomes a trend. So we will see fewer stupid reality shows and lame talk shows.

[JJH]

I'm just happy that Leno is no longer clogging up prime time.

[Andora]

Craig Fergusson is the best, imho. He even had a hilarious clip talking about the whole situation, culminating with "but we were the worst at the same time, every day of the week." Love him, and hope he moves on to bigger and better things in the future.

Conan would be great on Comedy, I bet. When he, Colbert and Stewart did their writers' strike bit, I was impressed. It seemed to fit. He could be the non-political hour.

The good news is that NBC is calling for more scripted dramas/comedies/dramedies. Which hopefully, it they are good and are successes, becomes a trend. So we will see fewer stupid reality shows and lame talk shows.

I agree 100%. The promising Southland was bumped from the network to make room for Jay. I was suddenly glad none of my favourite shows were on NBC. What happened to the peacock? Didn't they rule evening television once upon a time? Wasn't Friends on here? Wasn't it a slightly edgy, more mature option to Disney's ABC?

I've never been able to tolerate Conan - reminds me of too many frat boys I've known.

I've never heard Conan likened to a frat boy. I wish I'd gone to your post secondary institution, then, as the frat boys I've known weren't that clever. But it does show that Conan's not the general audience pleaser NBC hoped he'd be, which I'm not too surprised about.

[Rex]

I agree 100%. The promising Southland was bumped from the network to make room for Jay.

I thought TNT picked up Southland. I hope so, 'cause I lurve Regina King; she deserves a good show.

[loopey]

It's unfortunate that they feel the need to "demote" Jay to monologue-only.
He handles guests better than any of the others.

NBC should admit that this was a hare-brained idea; and return to the old-schedule, with generous "incentives", if necessary.
It is ridiculous that they don't seem to have had a "contingency plan" in place to address the possible failure of the "grand experiment".

I have to agree with this post. Jay's monologue is good, but so are his interviews.

IMO, NBC is trying to "have it's cake and eat it too"! So if Conan could not deliver the ratings they needed, then just let him go (and pay the contract penalty) or put him back in his old slot (and pay the contract penalty).

This sounds like one of those ridiculous comprimises where trying to make everyone happy and actually no one is happy. I doubt Jay will be happy just doing monologues, I doubt Conan wants to start later, and the public ratings support Jay more than Conan, so changing him to monologue only is not likely to make them happy either. Sounds like everyone loses. JMO.

[Anita18]

I thought TNT picked up Southland. I hope so, 'cause I lurve Regina King; she deserves a good show.

They did.

It's really interesting seeing the various reactions from different internet-scapes. All of the younger generation-based (like my age and younger) forums and blogs I've seen are all, "Bump Leno! Keep Conan!" while it's completely the opposite for older-skewing places.

Now if only they could figure out a good time slot to take advantage of that...