Late Night Chaos: Jay Leno Jokes About Cancellation Rumor But Will NBC Move Him Back To Old Time Slot?
Posted by The Movie God | January 8th, 2010 at 12:23 am
When Jay Leno officially ended his stint as the host of The Tonight Show and Conan O’Brien took over, it never really felt right. Since Leno’s new earlier show debuted and since Conan took over, ratings have been sadly mediocre, which has been growing more and more apparent as of late. With the lackluster numbers coming in, the whispers around town began growing into wide-spread rumors and unofficial reports that Leno’s show would be canceled. Amidst all of the drama that is likely flying around behind the scenes of this situation, Leno didn’t miss a beat and made sure to joke about the rumors on his show.
Though it is doubtful that Leno will be canceled, things just became a little bit more interesting: The New York Times is reporting that there may still be a plan in the works to stop the bleeding. The report claims that NBC will wait until after the upcoming Winter Olympics break, and that they would then move The Jay Leno Show back to the host’s old time slot of 11:35PM. The catch of this move is that Leno’s show would be cut to 30 minutes in length, and that would see The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien being pushed back to a 12:05AM start time, and then Jimmy Fallon at 1:05AM.
Continue on over to watch the video of Jay Leno joking about his cancellation!
When you think about it all, this move does make a lot of sense. First of all: it basically keeps all large moves like Conan’s takeover of The Tonight Show intact while at the same time pushing Leno and O’Brien closer to the time slots that they were so popular in. If this doesn’t work, who knows what the next move would be. Conan likely has a big fat contract, so they can’t just retract back to the way things were.
As a big fan of Conan and his style of humor over all of the other lat night talk shows, so I for one hope something turns for the better here soon, no matter how they go about igniting it.
I can’t believe it! First Jay said he would retire but he didn’t, but on top of that starts a new show just steal his audience back. I personally think it’s just messed up. Jays ratings have been dismal and many would agree that the dropping viewership of the Tonight Show is much in part due to Jay Leno cannibalizing the audience base.
What I hear now is that they are giving Conan an ultimatum to take the 12:00 spot or leave the network.
Giving Conan an ultimatum would be entirely disrespectful considering his long tenure at NBC (which includes his efforts on SNL). Jay Leno is a fine talk show host, he has long since proven himself to be so. Having said that, name recognition alone cannot be the sole justification for keeping a poorly received show. Perhaps it is to become an altered form of its present self but it won’t due as is. Conan has been given the Tonight Show and should be permitted at least the year 2010 to give it his own shot. The loss in viewership likely comes down to the fact that a transition from Leno to Conan is a striking one. Conan is very vaudevillian in nature whereas Leno is a wise guy. My grandfather loves Leno but sees no reason for Conan to exist. My father feels the same. I prefer Conan. It is a generation thing. Craig Ferguson is better than all of them though. Get rid of Fallon entirely. I mean from the world. Just go away Jimmy.
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