Defending Jay Leno

So a lot of people are ‘team’ Coco or Conan and against Jay Leno which I am really confused by because If you knew the facts you wouldn’t be blaming Jay for ‘stealing’ the Tonight Show. So here are the facts:
Five years ago back in 2004 NBC executives approached Leno in his office. Conan O’Brian’s contract was up and his people pushed NBC into promising him the Tonight Show. Now at the time Jay was the number one show on late night but the executives didn’t think that would last so they forced Jay out and Jay being a pretty decent guy decided to say he was retiring instead of telling his viewers what jack asses he was working for. That was pretty classy of him in my opinion. For those of you claiming that Jay is stealing the Tonight show from Conan well actually Conan kind of took it from Jay first and Jay has ABSOLUTIY no power to take back anything he does not own him name he is a talent for hire so he didn’t take anything from anyone. Jay did not steal Conan’s dream, Conan’s ratings did and if you still think Jay did well then you are either not listening to facts or are a slave to your emotions.
So then in 2008 the network came to Jay. He was still number one, something NBC didn’t expect. Jay was getting offers from other networks and NBC got greedy so they devised a plan: keep Jay and Conan. They offered Jay the primetime show and because Jay likes to work and because he wanted his staff to keep their jobs he accepted against his better judgment and NBC promised him one year.
In 2009 the show started and Conan took over the Tonight show. I gave the show a chance, but I still couldn’t get into Conan’s humor it just isn’t for me so I started watching the Colbert Report(I can’t stand Letterman he comes off as a bitter, rude, old man). The Tonight’s shows ratings started to slip. Now cut to Jay’s new show which premiered in September, everyone was watching in anticipation because if NBC pulled this off they would be the future of tv. You see it cost about 3-5 million dollars to produce a drama such as Law and Order and Grey’s Anatomy while talk shows and reality shows are much less ergo this was a business decision about money and Jay’s show if it worked would save lots of money. Unfortunately, Jay’s ratings slipped about 14%. For those of you that claim that Jay was not a good lead in for Conan in actually if that were true Conan’s ratings would have slipped around 14% as well instead Conan’s ratings slipped 49% for the first time in decades the Tonight show was losing money for the network.
Conan had seven months and to a lot of people that may not seem fair you say he needed more time, but a lot of tv shows don’t get seven months. Let me put it another way, if you are hired for a job and you lose 49% of the company’s revenue do you think they would have given you seven months to try and do better? Not really you would probably be fired really fast. So now to what happened when NBC pulled to plug on Jay’s show even after they promised a full year for the show to work and had him in a two year contract. The network went to Jay again who asked to be released from the contract. The network declined even after they fired him twice. They proposed a half an hour show from 11:35-12:05 and Conan would still have the Tonight show for an hour. Jay asked if Conan would go for it and the executives replied “sure were like 75% sure he will take it.” Now for those of you who argue he should have quite well he loves to work and I don’t care if you 28 or 117 if you’re not done and you still have work to do then you’re not done and if they offered him 30 to do what he loved then wouldn’t you take it? He loves his job. Who else here can say that?
NBC then went to Conan and told him the plan to push the Tonight show back. He declined and it was his right to if he felt that that was unfair. It was unfair what NBC did to Jay 5 years ago and it was unfair what they were doing to Conan now, but business isn’t fair. Jay and Conan weren’t bringing in the numbers and for those of you who say your pro Conan well if you all watched the show this wouldn’t even be an issue. So now Conan is refusing the deal so NBC bought out his contract for a whopping 45 million dollars. Hell I’ll do something for 7months for that much money just to chill for a while and in three months I’m sure Conan will get another job. So NBC offered the job as the Tonight Show host back to NBC and he took it because he loves it and if he didn’t someone else would have. If you were fired from your dream job and then it was offered back to you wouldn’t you take it?
The real issue here is emotions. People can identify with Conan because he was fired from his dream job…but Conan’s people forced Jay out of his dream job five years ago so how is that fair. Also for those who complain that Jay should have reached out to Conan, well how is that his responsibility? Is it your job to talk with the guy who the guy who hired you just fired to make sure his feelings aren’t hurt? I don’t think so. It sucks what happened to Conan, but it was business. He didn’t bring in the numbers and he was losing money. It was his dream job, but at least he got to do it for a time. Not many people get to say that.
Jay Leno is going back to the Tonight show starting in March and I for one and happy about this. The real problem with all of this for me is people ignorantly blaming Jay for something he didn’t do. He didn’t want to retire and he shouldn’t have to. It’s not about the money it’s about the fact that he still loves his job and his numbers on the Tonight show prove that he can do his job. He’s a good guy whose reputation has been dragged through the mud. If there is any blame it should be on NBC who handled the entire situation wrongly and who should have left their number one in his time slot to begin with instead of trying to read a crystal ball about what the ratings would be like so far in advance.
This is a win win situation. Jay get’s his job BACK and Conan gets a big pay out and a new job so can’t we all just shut up and get along? The people who loved the Tonight show with Jay can go back to watching it (sorry Stephen I’ll tivo you) and Conan lovers can catch him on his new gig. These guys will be just fine and there both good men so stop calling Leno selfish because you don’t know the guy. He doesn’t touch a penny of the money from the Tonight show. It goes to charities. He only lives off the money he earns doing stand up which he does every weekend. He hones his craft and he’s good at it. It’s really unfair that the real villain NBC isn’t getting as much as the blame as Jay is which is really not deserved.