Justin Thorn

image by Mike Mitchell

Conan O’ Brien had his last show as host of The Tonight Show on NBC last night. It was a sad moment for me as far as entertainment is concerned. I don’t watch as much TV as I used to but I still have a couple shows I watch daily. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart being one and Conan the second. A series of strange and unfortunate events by NBC executives over the past few weeks led to the premature demise of Conan’s reign as the host of The Tonight Show. I will give my opinion on that a little later. First I would like to say a few things about Conan as an entertainer and simply as a man.

I grew up as a child of the 80’s which is to say I was too young to stay up and enjoy Johnny Carson’s classic late night antics. Truth be told I never once saw an episode of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson live. It wasn’t until my teenage years in the early 90s that I began staying up to enjoy late night comedy on TV. I learned of David Letterman only after his move to CBS and for a long time much preferred his show and style of comedy over that of Jay Leno’s. One night after tuning into Letterman, rather than flipping the 13″ tube TV off in my bedroom and calling it a night I started channel surfing. After only a few clicks of the remote I stopped at the sight of this pale skinned, wild red haired comedian’s new late night show. I had never heard of Conan O’ Brien before but I quickly became a fan. Long before the age of DVRs I tried my best to catch his show regularly for years. Especially during the summers.

Over a decade later, in 2004, NBC announced that Jay Leno would be stepping down from The Tonight Show in 2009 and Conan would be taking over. I thought that was really cool and was excited especially since that probably meant I could enjoy another decade or more of Conan’s late night humor. Even Jay Leno himself was just as excited and on board with this idea. While I don’t remember this when it first happened, thankfully the internet remembered for me. Check out the clip below for Leno’s positive attitude and kind words. Listen closely and see if you can spot the irony.

So that was how things were supposed to go down. Obviously it never worked out that way. Here is a funny clip Conan featured on his show last week. It is a Japanese news program summarizing the Jay vs Conan story using amusing computer animation. Sure you won’t be able to understand a word they say but you won’t need to anyhow.

I think my favorite  spoof of the whole situation came from Jimmy Kimmel’s show. They produced a Ken-Burns style mockumentary that portrayed the late night battle as an epic WWII story complete with historic photographs and first account interviews. This one is hilarious and definitely can’t be missed.

image by @studionashvegas

Now for the section I would like to title NBC EPIC FAIL. This is my quick rant about the failure of NBC (and many other broadcast networks) to deliver what their audience wants and listen to their fans of their shows. Leno had a long 17yr run as the host of The Tonight Show and gladly retired to let Conan takeover. NBC spent a fortune moving Conan and his staff and their families to the west coast to prepare for his new show. Not to mention they dropped $50 million on a new studio. Why do you go all out on something and give it your all, as NBC clearly did, just to pull the plug seven short months later? Did they forget when Leno first took over it took NBC years to get higher ratings than Letterman. Why should Conan not be given the same respect and opportunity to make The Tonight Show number one again in the ratings? He was just getting started. Leno’s show at 10:00 failed miserably, not to much surprise of anyone really. Why reward his failures by bringing him back to The Tonight Show? Why punish Conan and also Jimmy Fallon by screwing up their time slots for Leno to squeeze in 30 minutes before The Tonight Show? They should have just fired Jay and kept their late night as it was.

Last week after it was clear NBC was canning Conan for good Ryan Vance, the VP of programming for Revision3 posted this open letter to Conan O’ Brien. For those not familiar Revision3 is a TV network that is solely available on the internet. They continue to grow in programming, quality, viewership and ad revenue year over year. The letter was partly tongue-in-cheek humor and partly serious. Ryan breaks down several benefits of moving to an internet only network. There are no time slots. Anyone could watch Conan’s internet show anytime they want. Not just that but there would be no licensing restrictions like traditional broadcast networks. This means Conan could have an audience all around the world, not just the United States. People in Japan, Australia, or even Ireland could tune in just as easily as us Americans. Conan would no longer be confined by a 42 minute block of time like 1 hour network TV shows are today. If he had a high profile guest on one night that got off on a fun tangent for 15 minutes and made the show 57 minutes long that night rather than 42 who cares. Its the internet. There are no rules. Conan’s core demographic is the 18-35 year old crowd. Most of them, especially in their 20s, don’t even own TV’s anymore and watch their shows online on their laptops and cellphones. It is already clear from #teamconan and #imwithcoco that Conan has fans all over the internet. If he had a show online it would connect him even further with fans. Maybe even allow realtime interaction with them just like a studio audience. Sure all this may sound crazy to some and I don’t really believe that Conan will go completely online only. Although anything is possible. However there will come a time in the future when some high profile celebrity will take this path and pave the way for a new age of entertainment. An age where time slots don’t exist and there are no rules. I look forward to that day. As Revison3 CEO Jim Louderback describes it, it would be like Howard Stern switching from traditional broadcast radio for satellite radio…only a lot better.

Conan your final speech in the last segment of your show really summed up how great of an individual you truly are. It was very classy and showed a lot of respect for everyone you have worked with and worked for over the past 20 years at NBC. It also was great for us fans. You have entertained me for over half my life. For that I see you as the Johnny Carson of my generation. I mean no disrespect to Carson, he was just before my time. I hate to see you go but I know you will be back eventually doing something even greater. Keep the laughs coming. In the words of a famous comic insult dog I am greatly looking forward to The New Tonight Show with Jay Leno……..for me to poop on!

Here it is. The final segment of the final episode of the final Tonight Show I will watch. Although I still think it could use more cowbell!