The fabulously wealthy, Harvard-educated, folk hero
After watching the fantastic last show of Conan O’Brien’s Tonight Show, I predict two things will now occur:
1. Upon listening to “Freebird” in the next year or so, I will spontanteously burst into tears
2. Leno’s show will initially win back ratings and then very slowly, die along with NBC. Or television in general.
I’ll back up assertion number 2 there, but first, a word from CoCo himself:
To all the people watching, I can never thank you enough for your kindness to me and I’ll think about it for the rest of my life. All I ask of you is one thing: please don’t be cynical. I hate cynicism — it’s my least favorite quality and it doesn’t lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen. As proof, let’s make an amazing thing happen right now.
And then they played “Freebird” with Will Farrell on cowbell.
Lynn Hirschberg’s May Times Magazine profile on O’Brien is, in retrospect, near psychic. Here’s Jeff Zucker speaking about Conan’s ultimate rise on Late Night:
There were so many doubters the first year,” says Jeff Zucker, the president of NBC Universal. “They said Conan jumped around too much in front of the camera, that he was too smart, too East Coast, too sophisticated, too young and even too tall to be successful. But Conan proved everybody wrong. We learned that you underestimate Conan at your own peril.
And then Conan, on the challenge of appealing to a different audience without changing who he is:
In entertainment, you have to stake out what you think is right, you have to put out that signal, make sure it’s pure and then do it and do it and do it and know that they will come. And if they don’t, you have to pack up your bags and say: ‘I enjoyed my time here. Sorry it didn’t work out.
And the knife in the heart, courtesy again, from Jeff Zucker:
O’Brien was choking back tears and he only briefly attended the crowded after-party in Studio 8H. Jeff Zucker was there with O’Brien’s agent, Rick Rosen. “I’m going to have to lay off 10 people to pay for this party,” Zucker said, as he popped a caviar-and-blini hors d’oeuvre into his mouth. He was half-joking. “Conan better be a success at 11:30.”
The dust-up between Leno, NBC, and O’Brien that’s dominated entertainment news for the past two weeks seems almost inevitable. The mix of personalities, network contract intrigue, and business pressure was barely mixing. Seven months later, it hadn’t gotten any better, and pressure from affiliates threw over that status quo.
While Conan’s People of Earth letter mentioned that the Tonight Show’s slot was paramount, DVRs be damned, it was something like the DVR (and the twitchy, over-reacting business decisions of NBC, in my opinion) that applied pressure to an already tense situation. O’Brien’s point, really, is that he wouldn’t be pushed around by the whims of NBC anymore.
Full disclosure: I barely watched Conan’s Tonight Show after the first week, mostly because of my schedule, but when I did watch, it was on Hulu – sometimes I needed a Conan fix in the middle of Saturday afternoon. But that’s the point – Conan’s fans were there, but they weren’t watching at 11:35pm.
I don’t buy the “short-attention span of this generation” argument (although O’Brien’s audience is most certainly Gen X through Millenials), but instead, O’Brien (and NBC shows in general) fell to the tyranny of choice. If the Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien was only on at 11:35pm and nowhere else, I would be more likely to be a.) aware of that time period b.) make a point to watch it. In that situation, if you miss it, you’ve missed out. Instead, if I can choose to watch The Tonight Show on demand, I will. I don’t understand why anyone thinks daily talk shows are DVR-proof, when those who show up are actors and musicians to promote their latest work, which will surely be in theatres, or in stores, for several months. And who, exactly, watched O’Brien’s Tonight Show for the guests?
Leno’s audience is less likely to see the range of choices available to see Leno’s show. So his ratings will spike when he returns, especially with what I expect to be a intense promotional push during the Olympics. But eventually, the overall TV audience will erode, and after this late-night fight, the younger generation is absolutely lost. I would think twice before spending any time with NBC late-night programming, especially if I’m worrying about it being pulled after several months.
Perhaps I’m overstating my case, especially considering my internet reading and tv habits line up with exactly those who would be supportive of O’Brien, but if NBC (and other networks) can’t find a way to convince under 30-year-olds that they should own a TV, then TV content will be subsumed into your local internet/content/screen tablet thingy, and Comcast will be out many billions of dollars. It will happen much slower than internet pundits expect it to, but it will happen.
And what about CoCo? What will he do when he’s release from his non-compete, non-disparage in September? My dear hope is that he will find new home immediately, and it is on Fox, be allowed to do his own thing. But, considering my above point, what’s stopping O’Brien from running the best online-only talk/variety show the internet’s ever seen? The one that finally breaks the online video ghetto? Buy it on iTunes, make it viable for DVD, and stream it everywhere you could find. Maybe NBC finds itself buying the rights to first Hulu run of The Conan O’Brien Show.
Like Jeff Zucker says, you underestimate Conan O’Brien at your own peril.
Recommended: The CoCo Insurrection [NY Mag] – Fantastic article about why losing the Tonight Show might be the best thing that ever happened to him
Update: David Carr and Nick Bilton are way ahead of me on this one.
Am stunned with brilliant clarity and crystalline precision of writing here, and how you have so captured the essence of change in such a short essay. Wondrous and enjoyable and I wanted to keep on reading!!!!!
Carl, you are too nice – I’m jumping on a lot of related stories and think pieces here.