Team Coco!
Friday, January 22, 2010 at 1:43PM 
You probably never thought you'd be asked if you were "Team Leno" or "Team Coco". After Jay Leno took over as host of "The Tonight Show" on NBC, there was some discussion around "Leno or Letterman" as people debated which host they preferred for post-local news TV.
But as ratings continued to plummet for "The Jay Leno Show" (apparently we don't like him at 10pm) and ratings for "The Tonight Show" hosted by Conan O'Brien were lackluster, there was talk of shifting Leno back to his role as host of "The Tonight Show" to try to regain viewers.
Drama ensued. Here's the recap:
NBC: We gotta do something about these ratings. Maybe we send Leno back to 11:35pm and slide Conan back a slot. Or maybe we quit airing both of them and show more reality TV instead. Whatever we do, we cant lose advertisers.
Leno: Yeah, I guess I'll go back to the 11:35pm time slot. I was king of that time slot. Jay-walking is WAY funnier after the local news.
Conan: So...I'll go after that? "The Tonight Show" will actually air at 12:05am the next day? That's whack.
NBC: Yeah, well, we're gonna make a change.
Yada, yada, yada, tonight is the final taping of "The Tonight Show" hosted by Conan O'Brien.
What's really interesting is that in the first week of this drama, the internet blew up with chatter about "Leno vs. O'Brien vs. NBC". Twitter conversation about the two hosts jumped from next-to-nothing to near the heights of much-discussed TV shows "Glee" and "Jersey Shore".
Widely-read pop culture blogs asked for editorial cartoons from readers and people began replacing their Facebook profile pic with images of their favorite host.
And now that the decision has been made, the commentary ranges from lashing out against NBC, claiming that they treated Conan unfairly to speculation over NBC's wisdom in giving Conan a large buyout* when their earnings are down. MarketWatch raises the question of whether NBC's choice to send Leno back to "Tonight" will be the ratings savior they need to keep a tight grasp on hard-to-come-by network TV advertising dollars. Or if this is another sign that network TV is flailing and NBC has a 'For Sale' sign in its future.
*The terms of the deal releasing Conan from his contract with NBC included a $33million payout for the host and $12million for his writing & production staff. The deal also stipulates that on September 1, 2010, O'Brien will be free to accept a new contract and transfer his brand to another network. Fans are speculating that he'll land anywhere from FOX to Comedy Central to the internet. As a long time Conan fan, I hope to see him somewhere soon. Until then, I may just have to get by with clips like this on YouTube:
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Reader Comments (2)
This is my fav Conan bit. It was the first thing I thought of when I heard NBC now owns all of his good stuff. Maybe it will force him to create even better for his new show though. PS I will be coming back to watch this YouTube clip often :)
Good news for Team Coco as Conan was nominated for an emmy today along with the Colbert Report, the Daily Show, SNL and Real Time with Bill Maher. Suck it Leno!