After the NBC late-night bloodbath: What is Conan O'Brien's future?

I've been following the NBC late-night meltdown just like everyone else, watching all the jokes about it on TV--Jimmy Kimmel's sharp-elbowed appearance on Jay Leno being the highlight--along with the kibitzing from network elders, ranging from Fred Silverman--who heaped blame on NBC Universal chief Jeff Zucker--to NBC sports guru Dick Ebersol, who trashed Conan O'Brien, calling him "chicken-hearted and gutless" for taking a few jabs at Leno. Even if it isn't absolutely official, it looks like Conan is finally a free man, getting a big payoff while Leno gets to return (after the Winter Olympics) to his old 11:35 p.m. time slot.

(And speaking of big payoffs, I can only wonder how many office pools have sprouted up in the past few weeks, with over and under bets on how long Zucker, who got everyone into this fine mess in the first place, keeps his job after the Comcast takeover is completed.)

But what about Conan? He clearly emerges with a big reservoir of sympathy as the poor guy (yes, the extremely highly paid poor guy) who got the shaft, losing his show after barely a couple of months on the job. But as some of my TV-steeped colleagues have shrewdly pointed out, where can he possibly go to replicate the kind of late-night talk show he's been doing for years? ABC has already said it's not interested in hiring him. HBO isn't prepared to get into the late-night talk show racket. And Fox, the network that normally would be most aggressive in taking advantage of a competitor's misfortune, has a lot of issues to overcome, starting with a huge lack of enthusiasm from its affiliates--who see a Conan show as a losing game--as well as the financial complications of footing the hefty bill for hiring O'Brien along with settling out the costly contracts for reruns on Fox's TV stations.

This creates quite a bind for Conan's team of WME talent agent advisers. They've sprung him from NBC, getting a big payoff, but where does he go from here? With the late-night landscape already crammed with talk shows, O'Brien (to use an analogy from his favorite sport) is like the slugging first baseman who becomes a free agent in a year where there are already loads of great first basemen on the market. 

Whatever he does, he's going to have to take a serious pay cut. Since that's a given, I'd like to see him go to where his audience already is instead of asking them to find him on an unfamiliar outlet. It's no secret that Conan's audience is at least a decade younger than Leno or Letterman's audience. We also know that the younger the TV viewer, the more likely they are to be watching cable TV, not the cobwebby programming available on network TV.

So if I were Conan, since I have to take a pay cut anyway, I'd be focusing on cable. And I'd also want to go somewhere where I had a decent lead-in for my show, not to mention a lead-in that might help me hang on to the younger audience that has been deserting TV in droves. Get my drift? If there were ever a perfect setup for O'Brien, it would be Comedy Central, which already has a powerhouse double bill of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Conan would be a great fit following their shows, inheriting a small (by network standards) but intensely loyal audience of viewers primed for his droll, irony-filled comedy routines.

The money wouldn't be the same, but I think it would be a liberating, low-pressure experience for O'Brien, who looks like he could use a break from the high-stakes ratings death match of network late-night TV. Instead of being told to tone down his act and pretend to be an old fogy, as NBC was asking him to do on "The Tonight Show," he could cut loose and get back to his roots, when he was was the most inventive, loose-limbed funnyman on TV. It's time to let Conan be Conan again. 

Photo: Conan O'Brien. Photo credit: Frederick M. Brown / Getty Images

Comments

[Paul]

As someone who has been choosing between Colbert and Conan (generally picking Conan), I would love this scenario. Also, I don't think that Conan rejected the midnight slot; what he rejected was the notion of moving The Tonight Show to midnight, when it's been at 11:3o since the beginning.

Leno could have avoided this by actually retiring when he said he was retiring. Instead, like Brett Favre, he's back in the game. Perhaps like Favre he'll be more successful than his replacement, but I won't be watching. I have no respect for Leno after this debacle.

[Kang]

Leno comes across as the most crass and pathetic opportunist ever seen in show business. And how long does NBC figure Leno and Dave will even be around duke it out... 3, 4 more years at the most? They'll be wishing they had Coco back...

[JJ]

Scraptalicious - he didn't reject that time slot; he rejected that time slot for The Tonight Show, a television institution. The way I read the letter, it really was less about him (after all, he said he would step aside rather than move the show) and completely about a show that he has great affection for.

[Evan]

Scraptalicious, he only rejected the 12 time slot for the tonight show because the tonight show has always been at 11:30, not because he is against 12 overall.

[Vanessa]

Scraptalicious: Re-read that letter. Conan rejected moving his show to past midnight not because it's too late for him (obviously, as he hosted the Late Show for 10+ years), but because The Tonight Show is a classic program with decades of history airing 11:30 nightly. Moving it back past midnight meant the end of what The Tonight Show was, and Conan didn't wish to be a part of its destruction or devaluation. It's a Judgement-of-Solomon-type situation; Conan is giving up The Tonight Show because he loves it too much to force it to move to a later time with him as host.

[Rob J.]

I don't think Conan personally objects to being on at midnight. Just that the TONIGHT SHOW should be on at 11:30 (or 11:35 for the anal retentive.) A show called 'Tonight', should, you know, start at nighttime, not in the am.

[Thad]

"I'm been following..."? Get a proofreader.

[Christopher Jackson]

why not a movie?! there are plenty of creative things that with his money and talent he can do.....

[Silas Kain]

While there's plenty of blame to go around, the blame begins with the deal NBC brass made with Conan 5 years ago. They only facilitated the contract because they were afraid of losing him. And here we are 7 months later after the transition of Leno to Conan. Network variety shows in the 10PM slot don't work. So O'Brien was left with five nights of a terrible lead-in. People want dramas at the very least. Leno's show was doomed from the start. And ultimately Leno's bravado cost many actors, stage hands, writers and other background folks to be without jobs. In the short term NBC may have saved some cash but in the long run the network is in deep financial trouble. What's next? A bailout from the Obama Administration? Is NBC too big to fail? If I were a GE stockholder I'd be at the next meeting asking plenty of questions -- the first being why is Jeff Zucker still in office?

[Doug]

Good post. The paycut won't hurt Conan that much... I am pretty sure. But it will definitely hurt all his crew that moved out to California with him. I am sure they will be compensated pretty good by Conan (or by the network hopefully), but what are their futures? Hopefully everyone land on their feet with this.

I for one who was always a big Jay Leno fan will not watch him anymore. He should just step aside and be the bigger man here.