This proves, once again, that in New York and Los Angeles, it's not what you know but whom you blow. Far better to be a hack with friends than a lonely genius.
Fallon sucks, plain and simple. His only appeal lay in his former ability to raise the blood pressure of NYU co-eds with his boyish looks and nauseatingly ubiquitous guitar.
But since his retreating hairline tossed him back into the everyman rubric, he's been running on fumes.
If it achieves nothing else, this hire should fill about three beefy chapters in the eventual book chronicling the gross mismanagement of the late-night lineup on NBC.
Whatever may be said of Jay Leno's comedic chops, he's the best corporate host in America. No late-night personality gets higher ratings, and in the TV business, that's what counts. Forcing him out to make room for Conan O'Brien's increasingly tired, exceedingly parochial act will prove one of the great missteps in modern television history.
Conan's act will not play with the 11:30 audience. He's not going to get Johnny Carson's Nebraska crowd with "Preperation H Raymond" or "squirrel with jetpack."
Those sketches may work with stoners, but ithey won't pass smuster with the American Gothic set.
Frighteningly, Conan's act is so past peak that it's apparently wearing thin even among the marginal 12:30 audience of college kids and counter-culture types. A few weeks ago, he actually lost a ratings battle to Craig Ferguson, who's been on the air for 30 seconds and who entered the job with virtually no name recognition.
A guy who's been on the air for 15 years should have an established audience, so when he loses to a startup nobody like Ferguson, it's a VERY bad sign.
Leno will go to ABC, which has been looking for an excuse to dump Nightline for years. Now that Koppel is gone, they have their opening. If they put Leno on at 11:30 and Kimmell on at 12:30, they would DESTROY NBC.
In the span of a year, NBC would go from first at 11:30 and 12:30 to third, behind Leno-Kimmell and Letterman-Ferguson.
This proves, once again, that in New York and Los Angeles, it's not what you know but whom you blow. Far better to be a hack with friends than a lonely genius.
Fallon sucks, plain and simple. His only appeal lay in his former ability to raise the blood pressure of NYU co-eds with his boyish looks and nauseatingly ubiquitous guitar.
But since his retreating hairline tossed him back into the everyman rubric, he's been running on fumes.
If it achieves nothing else, this hire should fill about three beefy chapters in the eventual book chronicling the gross mismanagement of the late-night lineup on NBC.
Whatever may be said of Jay Leno's comedic chops, he's the best corporate host in America. No late-night personality gets higher ratings, and in the TV business, that's what counts. Forcing him out to make room for Conan O'Brien's increasingly tired, exceedingly parochial act will prove one of the great missteps in modern television history.
Conan's act will not play with the 11:30 audience. He's not going to get Johnny Carson's Nebraska crowd with "Preperation H Raymond" or "squirrel with jetpack."
Those sketches may work with stoners, but ithey won't pass smuster with the American Gothic set.
Frighteningly, Conan's act is so past peak that it's apparently wearing thin even among the marginal 12:30 audience of college kids and counter-culture types. A few weeks ago, he actually lost a ratings battle to Craig Ferguson, who's been on the air for 30 seconds and who entered the job with virtually no name recognition.
A guy who's been on the air for 15 years should have an established audience, so when he loses to a startup nobody like Ferguson, it's a VERY bad sign.
Leno will go to ABC, which has been looking for an excuse to dump Nightline for years. Now that Koppel is gone, they have their opening. If they put Leno on at 11:30 and Kimmell on at 12:30, they would DESTROY NBC.
In the span of a year, NBC would go from first at 11:30 and 12:30 to third, behind Leno-Kimmell and Letterman-Ferguson.