[late night tv] Jay Leno retiring (again) in 2014...Fallon replacing him

I wish him luck
Never watched with any consistency
[any late night for that matter]

Rocket River

 

I think all of the hosts have their moments. Personally, I love Leno as a comedian. I saw him at The Mirage 3 years ago and thought he was outstanding. Doing great standup without going "blue" is a lost art form. After Cosby, Seinfeld, and Leno, I can't really think of any off hand that can pull it off.

Leno may not have been everyone's cup of tea, but 22 years of ratings suggest he was the majority's cup of tea. The Leno hate over the years has always come from an extremely vocal minority.

I think Conan is very funny in a different kind of way, but he doesn't have the fan base to compete with the big boys. He had the opportunity to go to Fox and do his show at the same time as Jay, Dave, Kimmel etc. He chose to take the cash and go on cable. I don't blame him for it because there is very little pressure and low expectations on TBS. I just think Leno has been improperly portrayed as a villain when it was NBC who created the mess twice.

I wish Jimmy Fallon good luck, but he's going to face the same issues Conan did IMO. The audience that watches Fallon, Conan, and to a lesser extent Kimmel, don't necessarily watch them at 1130 Eastern/1030 Central when the show is originally scheduled. They hear about bits on social media or youtube after the fact. Most advertisers and ad agencies are not sophisticated enough to understand the value of these metrics versus the longstanding gold standard of the Nielsen ratings. The reason Conan was pulled in the 1st place was 11pm/10pm newscasts were getting crushed across the country because people weren't tuning in for The Tonight Show. Local affiliates put pressure on NBC to bring Leno back and even threatened to air the Tonight Show an hour later.

It will be interesting to follow Kimmel vs Fallon vs Dave, though I don't think any of their styles/personalities is big enough to carry a majority audience share.

 

Leno hasn't been funny since he became a talk show host. His show has consistently been the least inventive of any of the talk show hosts. He always plays it so safe it's annoying. Leno just plain isn't funny.

That being said he was successful as the host of the show. I think most of his interviews were okay, because he seemed genuinely interested. They weren't great because like everything else on his show, he played it far too safe.

 

Everyone on the Internet: Leno isn't funny
Majority of audience in America: Leno is the best

Internet is rarely representative of America.

 

Been watching Leno since middle school back in the 90s. I haven't watch any of his newer stint when he was on the Tonight show, cause I don't have cable or tv but it still sad that he's leaving. I'm not really a big late night watcher anyways but I think Fallon would do okay.

 

I agree that Leno is the most popular talk show host in America. That isn't a testament to him doing anything right. Miley Cyrus and Justin Beiber are also insanely popular among the general populace. In fact his popularity probably means the opposite of doing something well.

 

Old people problems/sadness.

 

People don't like entertainers that aren't entertaining to them. You may not find a particular entertainer entertaining, but if they are insanely popular then obviously you are in the minority.

Justin Bieber doesn't suck as an entertainer. If he did, he wouldn't be popular.

Jay Leno is funny to most of the television audience. If he wasn't he wouldn't be popular. Despite what internet critics want to believe, America isn't full of mindless drones who watch whatever is put in front of them on tv and if only some executive was smart enough to put the latest indy comic up there they'd see how great they really are!

 

Being everyone's cup of tea doesn't make you good at what you do. Pretty much all of the most watched shows on TV are garbage television ( Big Bang, 2 and a half men, csi, walking dead, etc).

Like one of the articles someone posted mentions, both Conan and Fallon are far more like Johnny Carson. Jay Leno stayed away from inventiveness, creativity, and fun.

 

That isn't true at all. The reason is Leno's 10/9c show bombed and the local news ratings suffered. No one wants a talk show at 9, they want drama, comedy and "reality" shows. So after canceling Leno they had two hosts and one slot. Conan cost 40 million to fire, Leno would have cost 100 million to fire. NBC (rightly) decided to spend 40 million and fire Conan.

 

America is a lot more polarized than in Johnny's day
and have a lot more options.

Safe seems to be the way to play it
no one wants to go to bed pissed at something they say on late nite.

If Jimmy falls to #2 or #3 - folx will be b*tching about him.

How different are he and Kimmel in style/form/etc,
They are probably closed than he and Jay are . . . .
so they may split the audience more than Jay did. .which would result
in a win for kimmel and a loss for NBC

Rocket River

 

The majority of America is stupid and do not appreciate nice things. Norbit made more money than No Country for Old Men.

 

I thought it was the other way around... No one was tuning into the Jay Leno Show at 10/9, thus there was no proper lead in for local news and the Tonight Show with Conan.

 

At the 551 mark of the 60 minutes interview they talk about local affiliates pressuring NBC to bring Leno back. Both he and Conan were tanking.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iv-jQZbRXU

 

Order of events:

Leno's show bombed hard, affiliates complained, Leno Show cancelled, NBC needed to find place for Leno because he had huge contract.

Conan's tonight show wasn't number 1 but Leno's wasn't either. He was given 3 years before he beat Letterman. They signed Leno to a higher contract than Conan, it was more expensive to fire Leno back then.


When NBC signed Leno to do the 9pm show they knew it would be 3rd place every night. They just calculated it would still make money for the network because it cost so much less than a drama. Affiliates were the ones losing money in this scheme.

 

You mean Leno's show wasn't number 1 in his initial years? Since we know his show jumped to #1 after a couple of years and held on to that spot until Conan took over.

Order of events, Conan's Tonight show tanked first seeing as Leno's 9pm show didn't begin until several months later. Leno's 9pm leading followed in terms of bad ratings. NBC panicked and made another decision(terrible in the manner they went about it but smart eventually in terms of preserving ratings).

How was it more expensive to fire Leno? His contract expired in 2008 or 2009 prior to Conan coming on board The Tonight Show. By the time they rehired Leno for the lead in show, I find it difficult to believe it was for a significantly greater amount than the 32mill Conan was signed for.

 

See, that's the same crap I get tired of hearing. Your idea of fun may not be the next person's idea of fun.
Re. Inventiveness and creativity, that didn't hurt Leno's ratings and the lack of inventiveness and creativity sure hasn't hurt Letterman's ratings or his following either. You're comparing Leno with the new school-Conan, Fallon, even Kimmel- and their creativity. Rather than realizing Leno and Letterman are in a particular segment by themselves and have done quite well even with the advent of Conan, Fallon, Kimmel's shows.

Blah blah inventive blah blah plays it safe. Same argument again.
Who cares if he chooses to play it safe? Why is that such a big deal for his critics? As if Letterman is so daring with his jokes or has been for the past decade. Least inventive? What new creative aspects did Letterman bring to his show over the past few years? Letterman seems to get a pass on that aspect a lot.

Sometimes playing it safe is the way to go.

 

Leno lost to Letterman for three years in an era with two late night talk shows and Nightline. Conan was given 7 months in an era with Colbert, Letterman, Kimmel, and less ratings for network TV due to Netflix, internet, DVR etc.

Conan's show didn't tank. NBC designed Leno's show to tank because even if it came in third every night they would still make 300 million a year. When the affiliates weren't down with that strategy (due to it killing their local ratings) they demanded a change.

NBC signed Leno to do the Leno show for a 5 year contract. He signed a new contract for that show that paid him MORE than his contract for the Tonight show. 30 million vs 20 million.

Conan got 32 million as a buyout, not annual salary. Leno's buyout was much higher, around 100 million.

 

I would say it's usually the young audience to which that applies. If Leno was the kind of show that was just airing world star hip hop kind of stuff and catering to a lot of teens, then I'd agree with your last sentence. However, Leno does well because he's like the NCIS of late night. Funny, but safe, which attracts people of all ages. Someone like Kimmel, is more controversial and the older crowd, or those who are more easily offended, don't watch him as much. Kimmel is all about social media and *****ing Ben Affleck.

 

Exactly. 7 months is nothing these days, especially when you're going against Jon Stewart and Colbert. Let's also keep in mind that in those 7 months, the critics were impressed enough to nominate Conan for a Primetime Emmy... Something Leno had failed to do in the previous decade. Conan wasn't given a fair chance at all.