Well, the late-night wars of 2010 seem to be closing down for the time being; what better time, then, for me to tell you why I'm on the side I'm on? Yes, I'm the king of bad timing, but so it goes. I say the wars are closing down for now, but I think it's pretty clear that, should Conan O'Brien do what is expected and be on the airwaves again in September, they'll pick up heat by the fall. For now, though, things have cooled off considerably. So much so that so few people realized today that The Tonight Show With Jay Leno at 10 p.m. (also known as The Jay Leno Show) is leaving television a little earlier than expected. NBC had originally said that Jay would be on primetime until the Winter Olympics began on February 12. Now, they've quietly announced that he'll be leaving, somewhat inexplicably, on February 9.
What huge, blowout-style guests will Jay have? Will he play guitar on his last night? How much money will he spend on comedy bits; rather, how much money will he claim to spend? Right, I know Jay's thought of as not being terribly creative, but if he steals jokes from other talk-show hosts who are still on the air, why not those who've been fired?
And let's be clear: Conan O'Brien was fired. He may have gone as willingly as a person can in his unusual situation, but he was fired. The question that NBC asked itself and answered almost immediately was this: who is important to us? Is Jay Leno more important than Conan O'Brien? Are they of equal importance? Of course not. See, Jay gets a 1.4 rating at 11:35 and Conan gets a 1.1 rating in the same demographic, that old 18-49 demographic. Does it matter that both men topped David Letterman in the demo? No. Does it matter that Jay's audience is getting older and Conan's is getting...slightly less old?
As fascinating as the numbers game is (even if no one has yet given a solid and sane explanation of why a cheap, five-night-a-week hourlong talk show that gets ratings that would be modest on the CW is considered a huge success), what the last couple of weeks has reminded me is this: when it comes to late-night television, there are only a few people whose shows I want to give my time to. There's Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, the two Comedy Central hosts that I've been watching for years. There's--granted, I'm just beginning to check him out, but I'm liking what I see--Craig Ferguson, whose cranky yet weird persona reminds me of upcoming guest Eddie Izzard. And there's Conan O'Brien. In watching some clips from his 12:35 show, I'm reminded that he's certainly evolved as a late-night host and comedian. Would the Conan O'Brien of 1994 have thought the Conan O'Brien of 2009 was as funny? Are they equally funny? Well, no. But is that a bad thing?
Some people have said that it was only the final two weeks of his 11:35 show when his true persona came out to shine; certainly, there was a solid awareness that Conan had nothing to lose, so why not try anything? But then they showed the montage of what Conan had done for the past seven months at the beginning of the last show, and I realized that...yeah, Conan's been doing pretty crazy shit at 11:35. If the Masturbating Bear doesn't show up, that doesn't mean he's not funny anymore. It means he's trying new things. (Quick question: why is it that something like the Masturbating Bear is inappropriate at 11:35 at night, but it's cool at 12:35? Do people wake their kids up for the monologue or something?). I liked Twitter Tracker. I liked the wax figure of Tom Cruise. I liked all of it.
But I was guilty of something many fans were: I didn't watch Conan's show all the time. I watched it for the first three months, and then I just stopped. Why? It wasn't any less funny. I wondered why I needed to. There were no stakes, if that makes any sense. It was taking up too much space on the TiVo. But in watching the last two weeks, I became determined in the most important way: I will watch Conan's new show. Doesn't matter what time it's on; doesn't matter who the guests are. I will watch. Every night. In that way, I am on Team Coco. He's the funniest man on network television, and NBC is going to realize they made a big mistake.
Where should Conan go? Should: Comedy Central. Will: Fox. Why will he go to Fox? They'll want him, and they'll do whatever they can. Why should he go to Comedy Central? Can you imagine a block of Stewart, Colbert, O'Brien? It's manna from heaven. He'll want to go elsewhere, so he can be the dominant force, not following someone else. I don't blame him; frankly, I know why he'd want that control. But what about freedom? Fox will have affiliates; affiliates may not like what they see. They will want a certain level of ratings. Comedy Central will have none of those problems. Jon Stewart, on a good night, gets 1.5 million total viewers. Conan will not have a problem maintaining such a threshold. He should go to Comedy Central, because he can go crazy with whatever he wants to do. He should go to cable, period. And I'll watch him till the day he retires, for real.
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