In one of the recent Conan vs. Jay threads, Oprah was mentioned. I said before this is all over, that Leno would sit down with Leno since they're so close and do some "heart felt" interview.

Well, look what I found today:

With the whole NBC drama going on over The Tonight Show, it seems Oprah Winfrey has picked her favorite.

Set to be interviewed by Momma Oprah is none other than Jay Leno!

Oprah revealed on her talk show today that she's going to Los Angeles for a "one-on-one" interview with the funnyman with the episode airing this coming Thursday.

And we can pretty much guess how the interview will go.

Some lighthearted jokes and plenty of Leno trying to convince the audience that he's not at fault for having Conan O'Brien pushed out.

Guess it pays off to be friends with the big O!

I wanna see how this joker spins this story about how he shit on Conan.

Hmm...i;ll probably watch.

Is leno really to blame for all of this?

there are so many conflicting storys...can someone set me straight?

I read that NBC told leno he had 5 yrs to find a replacement for the tonight show. & they put leno in the 10;pm time slot.
Leno had a better contract so he is back as host of the tonight show.
Did leno really get fired or was it HIS decision to leave?



PS...I am with team CoCo.

I don't watch Oprah, and Leno isn't gonna make me tune in. They are for old people.

sonic said:

NBC fucked it up - but adding to the debacle was the fact that Leno did not step aside when he should have. He plays the "nice guy" but he really isn't so nice after all.

DiminutiveRocker said:

He was never a nice guy. Leno is known by his fellow comedians as being a dick head. Remember that during the Carson leaving and the ensuing Letterman/Leno fight for the show, Leno hid in office closets to listen into negotiation meetings, phone calls, etc to get an upper hand.

ernestsewell said:

lazycrockett said:

LOL Not really, but ok. No one's making you watch.

ernestsewell said:

Not so different from his peers who maintained a longivity in this business. Nobody lasts this long by being the "nice guy" since it has never been and never will be a "nice business"

Mind you, I'm not a fan,,,,but I understand if he had to pull out his claws and teeth to fight for his position.

If we're gonna lay the blame on somebody, NBC should take all of it,,,and then some.

Overall, I think this charade took more coverage than what it deserves.

I never understood the appeal of Leno. He's not funny, he's not fun.


The Oprah interview is a waste of time, no damage control will be done.

Oprah's boring ass shows don't interest me anymore, so I won't be watching.

leno is funny, but he does caters to a different audience than conan.

joseph8 said:

someone thinks he's the best!
[Edited 1/27/10 12:26pm]
[Edited 1/27/10 12:28pm]

I dont hate jay..he.s just different than conan. I like some of his bits like "headlines".."battle of the jaywalk allstars"

but conan cracks me the fu%$ up!

http://www.youtube.com/wa...wqP-btRQMg

http://www.youtube.com/wa...f4xW5SnzfY

http://www.youtube.com/wa...re=related

Leno is not for old people..I'm 24 and sometimes watch him, but whatever.

peacenlovealways said:

You are outside of his main demographic

Did anyone watch this today? I'm DVRing it while doing something else, but I plan to watch it in the next hour or two.

ernestsewell said:

I DVR'd and am watching now.

i watched it, leno sucks 100%, he's just doesn't seem honest to me, IMO!

kimrachell said:

Co-sign

kimrachell said:

Agreed. He was very careful about how he said things. He came more gently attacking NBC, and saying nothing bad about Conan, because he knows the cards (and fans) are against him. He's a snake. He always has been, but this whole fiasco is just proof of his selfish ways. He should have said "No" when the show was offered to him.

I have NEW respect for Jay.

He proved to be a perfect gentleman.

Ratings!

ernestsewell said:

I still don't get how it's Leno's fault.

Whether Jay accepted NBC's offer or not (and he'd be a fool to take Door #2), Conan was getting bounced, anyway.

While I really don't like Leno and there's been some great material on Conan over the years - I find Conan himself generally annoying - as the old saying goes, "Money talks and bullshit walks." Conan couldn't (and wouldn't) produce the ratings NBC wants at 11:30. Too edgy for the Leno crowd and too similar to Letterman, tone-wise.

As Howard Stern said (and Howard despises Leno), Conan's the fool here for insisting on taking over Tonight. He could've stayed at 12:30 for many, many years, making much, much money. He pushed Jay out in the same way people are accusing Leno of pushing Conan out now.

OH OFRAH (that's what my old coworker called her).

Oprah always tryin'a make someone look like a put upon, downtrodden hero. Like she tried to make Whitney look like less of a batty crackhead when e'erbody know Bobby was the sane(r) one in that pair. Like she tried to dress Palin up in a bow.

Leno: "I'm doing it for my staff!" Really, shut the hell up.

starkitty said:

FUCK Oprah!

Ace said:

Conan was NOT out. Remember, the first plan NBc had was to push Conan's show to 12:05 and put the NBC pseudo-saviour Leno on at 11:35 for 30 minutes. (I'm still not sure what he was supposed to accomplish in 30 minutes that he wasn't accomplishing in an hour.) Leno should have said "later, I'm out of here." Even Oprah suggested that. Leno talks about how he wanted to save his staff, but he forgot he put almost 200 people out of work by eventually taking Conan's job back from him.

The numbers don't lie. Leno's first seven months weren't as successful either, and those 5,000,000 people he had watching near the END of his show were SLOWLY gained over the 17 years he was on that show. He wasn't beating Dave out of the box. It took time to build an audience.

Also, Conan did NOT insist on taking over the Tonight Show. It was NBC's idea to shift the host. Leno himself has said he didn't want to do that, and he felt heavy hearted about it. Conan had no kind of clout to push Leno anywhere; not five years ago, nor seven months ago. So that whole argument is bullshit, because there's no proof or foundation for it. It's all falsely based conjecture.

Leno is now seen as a bully and selfish. Instead of just saying "I'm out of here", since he was fired TWICE from NBC, he decided to take an offer that would push Conan out the door. Leno is a workaholic, but he's also addicted to fame. When Leno was teasing Oprah about her retiring after 25 years, she said she knew who she was WITHOUT a show. It'll be over for her. She doesn't need the show to sustain a sense of self. THAT is the question Jay should ask himself (but never will). Despite his claims of considering himself a stand up comic who happens to have a talk show (he claims to live off his stand up money, but that money isn't buying him cards and that house he has; he's investing his NBC money, but let's not lie - he's living off that money too), he has so infused his job as host with his very being that he cannot be away from TV. If he could, he wouldn't have went on at 10 p.m. He could have seen beyond the show and fame and television and becomes/did something else and just let Conan do his thing, and find his audience.

They're showing reruns of Conan, and I'm DVRing every one of them to save them on DVD. They're funny! NBC never gave him the chance. Jeff Zucker is a fucking idiot, and should have been fired by the Board of Directors at NBC.

I love the coco! Never really cared for Leno (unless you know who was on) but I have to agree with the Chin on this one!

I would not have just stepped aside to let Conan have it. I would have wanted to keep my job just like everyone else would.

And lets not cry for the coco-man, he did get a huge payout, and then what I thinking is a way to pay him more and leave his crew out of it, NBC payed him even more for two development deals for shows.

starkitty said:

He was?

ernestsewell said:

You wouldn't say that NBC knew the odds of Conan taking that deal were very slim and that - if he had - they eventually would've canceled him, anyway? Personally, I don't think they had any intention of having him at 12:05 for very long.


Why?


Weren't his numbers to Conan's apples to oranges?


Wasn't he always neck-and-neck with Dave, passed him with the infamous Hugh Grant appearance and pretty much never looked back? And do you think Conan has the sensibility to appeal to the kind of mainstream audience Leno does?


Everything I've read says Conan insisted on taking over Tonight by '09, or he wouldn't re-up. What are you reading?


By some. But he's no more selfish than you or me and I don't see how he's "bull(ied)" anyone.


He wasn't fired. In the first scenario, he agreed to step aside for Conan and, in the second, NBC determined they were never gonna make anywhere near the amount of mazuma with Conan at 11:30 that they could make with Jay and offered him his old slot back.


Whether Jay took it or not, Conan was not staying at 11:30. Why wouldn't he take it?


And Conan's not?


Translation: "The ratings were starting to decline and I'm getting out while the getting's good." It's not exactly like she's leaving showbiz.


Why?


Oh, he could easily afford that lifestyle on his stand-up money alone. He wouldn't even necessarily have had to have invested well.


If I'm him and NBC's offering me shit, why wouldn't I take it?


I've loved a lotta Conan stuff (although he, himself, became annoying to me several years back). Funny isn't the ish, here.


If he's the one who greenlit the give-Conan-Tonight-in-2009 deal, then - yeah - that was a really bad decision. We've all made 'em.

I dig that you're so passionate about pop culture (said one pop-culture-lover to another). But, this summer, we gotta start two separate BB threads, okay? I can't get your live feeds in my peanut butter!

Ace said:

LOL I'm not going through all that. But kudos for typing all that up. My points stand. And what's done is done w/ Coco and Chinboy. I hope Leno's ratings tank. Conan's exit was the highest rated show on NBC that week, beating any PRIME TIME show all week long. Leno scored a 1.2 share in his pseudo-goodbye.

leno agreed to step aside, then changed his mind.

when i heard what he told oprah, that the controversy over the night show and conan's termination was due to the 'ratings' i about

no, jay, it was about you hanging on after you agreed to leave