Can you see what the fuss is about?
Jay and Conan and NBC's "mistake", or "experiment" with the time slot...?
So then.. what we're learning is that the folks that are given the well paid task of TV programming...um, don't always know what the public will watch long enough to sell the commercial space in between interviews so they can afford to make the show. And Jay is costly. I don't know why. He's okay at what he does but he's hardly inspired.
A few years back there was a flurry of late night talk shows started to compete with the magic of the Johnny Carson time slot. Jay got the job from Johnny when he retired, and Letterman and Arsenio Hall fought for viewers at the time. Then Chevy Chase, Pat Sajak, Magic Johnson and maybe two more people that I can barely remember, except that I remember that there were other shows, tried to steal away viewers from this coveted time slot, but were very short lived.
People are their habits. The Tonight Show with Johnny was a dynasty. Letterman has carved his way in by doing a show he made his own every night. Arsenio was a phase of pseudo-urban cool that relied on so much shmaltz and unfunny bits that he eventually failed. The thing is, if you don't have something genuine to offer, you don't really grow your brand.
I did a guest spot on the third from the last episode on Seinfeld. When I finished filming, Jerry stood with me graciously telling me I was funny and thanking me for my contribution to the show. The classiest guy I've met in showbiz, ever. So, I asked him about the final episode, the grand finale, and remarked on how much talk there was about how he would end the biggest comedy in history. I said I was sure it would be great since they had this funny thing down and they would surely knock it out of the park. And this is where he gave me a great lesson; He said " Well that's the thing with comedy. You never know. You just throw it out there and hope." After 9 years, he was still just tossing it out there and hoping?
That show was about the funniest thing anyone had seen on TV and it was due to the leader reminding everyone that we throw out our best effort and hope. That's comedy. That's risky. That's fresh and alive.
Great lesson, eh?
The execs at every studio are tossing things out there every week. If the folks charged (and again, VERY well paid) are just tossing their best guess out there, why would you as a risk taker ever get scared about doing the same?
Now that Jay Leno left his time slot to try something else that failed, and Conan failed to meet Jay's numbers, the reshuffle has far too much talk about it going on. Controversy? What? Why? Was anything guaranteed about this?
These two gentlemen are terribly lucky to be in this position. There is way too much talent out there to think that NBC's future hangs on these two. The head of NBC programming might be on the chopping block for this blunder of a move, but so what? It's not like he knows what he's doing in the first place. If he did, he'd never lose a ratings war to any of the other networks, right? Maybe he's just a guy who's trying things out. Hmmm...that sure flies in the face of that ever-perfect posture these exec's meet us with when we audition, doesn't it?
Don't lose sight of the fact that behind the chatter of the high profile controversies are people just like you that make decisions and try their best, and often, flat out fail to meet their goal. It's the same process whether it becomes highly criticized or not. If you find yourself reading your own made up headlines before you make a decision, I bet you make the wrong one. But thank these folks for showing you that failing on a grand scale really isn't that bad. Jay, Conan and NBC will surely go on.
Really well said, Markus. To honor your astute observation that "if you don't have something genuine to offer, you don't really grow your brand" -- NBC tried to play "Emperor's New Clothes" with us, and it bombed.
We've all watched enough TV, and are savvy enough by now to realize when we're being fed a manufactured "moment." You can quintuple the amount of audience crowding around Jay to touch the hem of his Bill Blass suit every night at the beginning of the show -- and we just don't buy it. Viewers were sold a show that would be a mix of the best of Jay at 11:30 with a bunch of new, fun stuff. But the paucity of new was torture to view.
What is the lesson from the "experiment?" Perhaps that a programmer can't legitimately excite us about a show when the motive -- cheap production cost to profit ratio -- is so damn obvious. It turns out, we're all a bit more discriminating about what we watch when it's a couple hours further away from bedtime, and we're not so bleary-eyed.
Another lesson: don't confuse or dilute the brand. Is NBC's "brand" Jay Leno himself or the Tonight Show? Did network hubris lead them to believe that splitting the brand, doubling the week's hours of talk would double the viewers' demands for NBC talk shows? It occurred to me last summer, nowhere near the think tank at Burbank, that there are only so many movie and TV stars out there to hawk upcoming movies and shows -- and even fewer "zoo guys" with ferrets and snakes to embarrass the host with. Wasn't it a no-brainer that Leno's guests would be near-useless later at night, anywhere? Logical conclusion -- Tonight Show becomes diluted, even IF (a big if) Jay's lead-in should have astronimical numbers.
Seven months later, the lesson may be that the "brand" is more of a genre -- the talk show. There are no franchise rights to a genre, only the opportunity to attract viewers/fans/eyeballs by putting your best product forward. Epic fail here, NBC.
Final, and perhaps most important lesson for readers of this blog --- you can't fake an original. As each year passes that Johnny Carson hasn't hosted the Tonight Show, we depend more upon riding on the fumes of what made that show so great. Sure, we become accustomed to going to NBC before we say goodnight, but there is always a nagging voice way back in our minds reminding us of Johnny, Jack Paar, Steve Allen - if you've ever seen the kinescopes. Each of these guys was original, and didn't ride on format or style coattails to build their personal entertainment "brand" within the GENRE of their talk show. Perhaps this is why Letterman's show, which comes from his style, is more original than any Tonight Show with a host who sits on tradition without bringing anything new (or funny?) to the table.
Time will show if NBC has learned from these lessons, or if this experience is yet another drop in the bucket of history's lost opportunities for growth. But all of us individuals can apply it to our lives, so that when the time comes for us to participate in our own experiments, we'll have the talent, preparation and wherewithal to do better than some programmer's assumption
Final note to NBC, or anyone else willing to take the risk -- this week would be a great time to "experiment" with the American people. Estimates are that 100,000 Haitians have died in the earthquake, and if they're even 50% over the amount, this is an immense tragedy. If Jay, Conan, David, Jimmy or Jimmy or Craig could take an hour to turn America's lens from themselves and out into the real world, to risk not making us laugh for just a little while (no great risk for some of these guys), show that they, and therefore we, care about things beyond Avatar's box office this week, they could possibly make a little history, while simultaneously diverting us from the prosaic topic of ratings woes. If you'll remember, both Letterman and Conan cemented viewer loyalty and imbued dignity in their roles as court jester on their first live broadcasts following the weeks of 9/11.
Let's put some clothes on these would-be emperors and get back to life.
Posted by: Nick Bandouveris | January 14, 2010 at 09:32 AM