In the last couple of days alot has been discussed in the news and around the media about Conan O'Brian leaving the Tonight Show. The result in moving Conan was because it didn't have enough ratings to keep him on air. Jay Leno, on the other hand, wanted a different time schedule to have more people watching his Tonight Show. Knowing that Jay Leno has been on NBC since 1994 and Conan having his Tonight Show air at 10:35 central time since June, made it seem like Jay has the higher advantage of staying on NBC. Moving the shows around, NBC came up with Jay Leno being aired at 11:35 central time for a half an hour, and to move Conan's show back to a later time, but Conan refused to air his show at 12:05 central. In the beginning of this controversy, It was Conan's idea to leave NBC, which had led to 200 of his staff workers getting out. The network has been paying millions of dollars to reimburse every staff worker. Conan has been close to signing a 40 billion dollar deal to walk away from the Tonight Show. It is believed that Conan is getting more viewers than ever before, because many people have been worrying about not seeing or hearing of Conan anymore. With Conan leaving NBC's Tonight Show, he has been getting offers around the media to start up something new. For example, the radio station Y94 in Fargo, ND has offered him a spot in the morning talk show and also he was welcomed to join the next Dancing with the Stars show.
At first, the NBC issue didn't grab my attention as much as it did with die-hard fans, but hearing all the news about Conan leaving the Tonight Show and NBC wanting more ratings somehow interested me. It attracted me on levels I would've never expected. I think both men do their job well enough to get viewers to watch them, but changing their time slots got me frustrated because it shouldn't be a big deal to have one of them move out and not the other. To me, this whole controversy between Conan O'Brian leaving the Tonight Show and Leno staying made me realize, if this is even worth talking about. I think NBC should stop drawing attention to the network, and let big news, such as the earthquake in Haiti, take over the spotlight.
