Category Archives: TV

One other point on Bill Carter's new book, The War for Late Night: When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy: In his 2006 book, Desperate Networks, Carter covered the part of the story where NBC Exec Jeff Zucker engineers the delayed departure of Jay Leno and the installation of Conan O'Brien as host of The Tonight Show. It's a very different account there, one in which Leno is given a new contract in 2004 that will keep him at that job through the end of 2009…then a few months after that, Zucker approaches Leno about the possibility of making that the last contract. Jay is given the choice of handing the show over to Conan after that and he agrees.

In the book released last week, Leno knows when he gets the 2004 contract that it's his last and he's pissed about it but he doesn't have any choice. Not the same thing at all. Presumably, Carter learned more when he researched the latest chapter of this whole tawdry drama.

As busy as I am lately, I've somehow found time to work my way through a book and a half. The half is Finishing the Hat, the first volume of Stephen Sondheim's lyrics, heavily annotated by the man. For those who prize and study his work, it's an absolute treasure trove not just of lyrics but of insights dispensed in his commentary. Getting through the entire volume will take a while and I'll probably be reading and re-reading for some time…with some effort since the tiny font makes that difficult. (I have 20/20 vision and I'm having trouble with it.)

My awe of Mr. Sondheim's facility with words and his dedication to making them perfect has always been grand…and it's nice to have so many examples of cut or rewritten songs and to see that even he's had trouble at times meeting the standard he set for himself. So have a lot of people, apparently. It says on the cover that the book contains, "Attendant comments, principles, heresies, grudges, whines and anecdotes" — and it does contain all that. He might have also tossed in something about snarky criticisms of lyricists who don't follow his rules for how a song has to be written.

A friend of mine who's quite literate in the theater doesn't sing the praises of Sondheim the way some others do, likening him to an author whose characters all speak in exactly the same voice — that of the author. I never felt that criticism was true…or at least to the extent it was true, one could overlook it the way one overlooks the wire attached to Peter Pan or the fact that a character in Act Two is obviously just an actor from Act One back in a different costume. Experiencing so many Sondheim lyrics in any one sitting, and watching him lecture the world on how lyrics must be written, I'm starting to see what my friend meant.

This is not a firm opinion on my part…just something that's on my mind every time I pick up this book. It's subject to change as I read more…and will probably change — in what way, I do not know — Monday evening when I attend an interview of Mr. Sondheim up at UCLA. I still admire the man. I just may need to rethink the limits of that admiration.

And I've thought a lot about all the central players in The War for Late Night: When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy, the new book by Bill Carter about the whole mess with Jay and Conan and time slots and such. There will be folks who'll read this book and decide that whichever host they find less funny was the villain. I think it makes a strong case that neither Jay nor Conan did anything unethical…nor anything particularly noble. They were just two guys trying to get or hold onto the best possible jobs as others moved them clumsily around a big chessboard.

O'Brien, like Leno and Letterman before him (with Helen Kushnick and Mike Ovitz, respectively) had killer agents and attorneys running around trying to nuke anyone or anything that stood in the way of their client(s) getting Johnny's old time slot. That's kind of the way the game is played — it kinda has to be since the network is certainly lawyered-up — and I guess I lost a little respect for Jay, Dave and Conan whenever they used the old "It's not me doing that, it's my agent" excuse. One of the worst things said in this book about O'Brien is that a lot of the anti-Leno rhetoric that turned up on the Internet was planted there by Conan's reps…and not even to try and help their client keep the 11:35 job but just to hurt Jay as much as possible. I suspect Conan will be unhappy to be associated with that.

What I think most will take away from the book is that Jeff Zucker made a bad mistake to shove Leno aside and give the Tonight Show to O'Brien. At one point in the book (I can't find the exact quote at the moment), Lorne Michaels makes a comment about how fortunes have been lost underestimating Jay Leno. That may be a pretty good summary of the entire affair…although the book also makes a credible case that for all the angst and ill feelings engendered, the shuffling-about of hosts still made financial sense for NBC.

Near the end, Michaels and Jerry Seinfeld both make the argument that O'Brien should have taken the offer to do his Tonight Show at 12:05 following a half-hour Leno program…an argument also made to me by a friend who worked for O'Brien and lost a job he'd counted on because Conan said no. I don't think I agree…but then I also don't buy that he turned it down because of some principled stand against despoiling the heritage of The Tonight Show. I think it was just plain a humiliating demotion and a lose/lose proposition for Conan: If the ratings didn't improve, the next step was to fire him or shove him back to 12:35. If they did improve, he'd (at best) forever be the guy who couldn't make it in the big time…and execs would be wondering how much better the numbers would be with a full hour of Leno before him. My friend on Conan's staff sort of agrees with me and says, "If Conan had really been concerned about preserving the glory of The Tonight Show name, he wouldn't have handed it back to a guy he thought did a crappy program."

Carter's book certainly does not support the proposition, which members of Team Coco will probably believe as long as Obama haters insist he was born in Kenya, that O'Brien lost the 11:35 gig because Jay's 10 PM show tanked and Jay demanded his old time slot back. Nor does Carter make it sound like Jay was particularly Machiavellian in any of this. I suspect the player who'd be most upset with how he comes across if he reads the book (which he probably won't) is David Letterman.

It is also interesting to note some developments that have happened since this book went to press. All of the ratings for the late night shows are down and Leno has been hurt more than most. He's now being tied or occasionally beaten by Dave, which can't make anyone at NBC too happy or confident. Also, the shows now ensconced at 10 PM on NBC are all tanking. Much was made throughout this drama about how Jay's bad numbers in that slot were hurting Conan. I never thought that…and not just because Conan's ratings were poor before Leno even went on at that hour. In the book when O'Brien complains about "shitty lead-in" ratings, I wonder if anyone said to him and it just wasn't quoted, something like, "Yes…and what was there before got shitty ratings and what we can replace him with is going to have shitty ratings and recovering from them is part of the job description of hosting the Tonight Show. Jay usually had bad lead-ins and managed to win the time slot in spite of that." What happens with Conan's ratings on TBS in the next few weeks will further advance this whole drama beyond where Carter's narrative leaves off. One gets the feeling the story wasn't over. They just wanted to get the book out in time for Christmas.

In fact, I'm starting to think that there's a whole 'nother chapter coming in this story and that none of these central players will be in the same job five or maybe even three years from now. Bill Carter may get a trilogy out of this yet.

It's a measure of something — what, I don't know — that you can buy a mask and go trick-or-treating this year as Jay Leno, Dave Letterman or Conan O'Brien. With Bill Carter's book about to come out, Conan's show about to debut and Jay and Dave finishing lately in a near-tie, I find myself wondering why I or anyone cares that much about The Late Night Wars. You have here three men who, no matter what happens, will remain multi-multi-millionaires who've gotten around 97% of everything they could ever have wanted in their professional lives. And this is working in an industry where the average player is lucky to achieve 2%. They are all loved and admired by millions. They are all wealthy beyond any human standard. If they were free agents, they would all be flooded with offers of new projects — maybe not the precise ones to achieve the missing 3% of their dreams but they'd never be unemployed. Given what he makes in Vegas and other locales where he does stand-up, if Leno were to lose The Tonight Show, his income might very well go up…and for doing something he clearly loves to do.

I'm not sure why so many people are interested…or even why I am. A bit of it is a nod to the impact that Johnny Carson had on America. He was about as close to royalty as we've ever had in this country and royalty is one of the few places where you can be someone special without proving you can do anything. You certainly can't for very long in the comedy business. It's like in sports. Being picked to play centerfield for the Giants today wouldn't mean you were Willie Mays — you still have to catch the ball — and being on NBC at 11:35 doesn't make you Johnny and never will.

I knew an actor who was up once for the lead in a very prestigious series. He spent months auditioning and screen-testing and doing meet-and-greets with the network. For 90, perhaps 120 days, his life revolved around whether or not he would get the part and it was very real, high drama…because pretty much his whole life was at stake. If he got the part, he was convinced, he would suddenly become rich and famous and also powerful. Whatever reasons he had for getting into show business in the first place would soon be realized, either directly or indirectly. Even if all he cared about was doing good work as an actor, and even if the show had been fluff, the resultant stardom would have put him in a position to do other things of his own choosing. He ultimately did not get the job and took it very badly…and I think we can all understand why. He was thatclose (typo intentional) to getting everything of which he'd ever dreamed.

The battles fought over Johnny's time slot are quite different. Jay, Dave and Conan were all rich 'n' famous long before they entered that contest. Our fascination with something like Deal or No Deal has a lot to do with the possibility of seeing someone win life-changing money. The contestants are always folks who have little or nothing when they walk in. For them to maybe walk out with a check for a million is a very big deal for them and therefore for us as spectators. We can also fantasize maybe that it's us up there picking Case #22 and scoring the mil. Imagine how uninteresting it would be to see a rich guy play that game.

And yet the Jay/Dave/Conan battle matters to us…I think, in large part, because we've all watched one or more of them enough to have some sense of who's a good guy. Some of that may be illusory. I know folks who've met those gents for real and for good or ill, come away with a sense of, "Gee, he's not at all like I expected." Johnny was like that, too. An actress I used to know had a strong crush on Mr. Carson until she was cast in a sketch on his show. She came away thinking that the Johnny Carson she loved and thought she knew was not the real person…and I'm not sure she ever watched his show again. I saw it happen the other way with others. A writer I knew thought Carson was a lightweight expert at exploiting the skills of others. Still, when my friend had an offer to work on the show, he took it anyway…and came away convinced Johnny was a genius who earned every nickel. (For what it's worth, knowing a lot of folks who've worked for Jay, Dave and Conan — and having limited contact with all three, myself — my sense is that they're all very good, decent men who are generally wonderful to their staffs…and maybe all at least a little childish about attaining that missing 3% I mentioned earlier.)

So we get this idea in our heads that Jay is the good guy and Dave is the bad guy…or vice-versa or Conan can be either. Maybe we replay old personal injustices: You're Dave and Jay represents that guy who beat you out for that job you wanted twenty years ago. Or you're Conan and NBC is that evil boss who fired you your second week on the job. Or you can be Jay doing your job and succeeding in it and then Conan is that young punk who shoved you aside. I mean, whatever professional grudges you may hold, you can probably find some analogy in there. But in reality, it comes down to which weathy superstar is going to get to do his talk show on which station…and who gets to call his The Tonight Show and imagine a montage of his face alongside Steve Allen, Jack Paar and Johnny.

A few months ago, an agent who was close to the whole Jay/Conan slapflight (not participating but he had real good spectator seats) gave me his whole take on it. He thinks it was just a case of a network screwing up a couple of key decisions — something everyone who works at any network will tell you happens all the time. He also thinks both men or their reps made some bad career choices…and with all those bad bits of judgment occuring on top of one another and fueled by so many egos, you had a Perfect Storm and therefore a disaster. I asked him, "So why should anyone who did or didn't get a job out of it care?" He said, "They shouldn't. But we also don't share in the bonus that our team gets when they win the World Series, and we didn't score the winning run and we didn't do anything to make them win and we don't even really know the people who did…but we still care who wins." I think he's right about all that.

Anyway, if you'll excuse me, I have to get ready to go out and trick-or-treat. It was difficult but I managed to find and buy a Carson Daly mask. I'm going to put it on and see if I can find a guy in a Jimmy Fallon mask to follow around tonight. Still hope I don't get any candy corn.

I haven't written anything here lately about late night TV because I haven't seen anything on it worth writing about. Much to my amazement — because not so long ago, I was a tremendous fan of both Dave and Jay — I now find both their shows largely unwatchable. I TiVo Letterman when he has on a guest who seems worth watching. Lately, this has been about twice a month and generally, the show strikes me as something Dave is doing just because he doesn't know what else to do with himself. I record Jay most nights because he at least acts like he enjoys his work but after the monologue, I don't find a lot that I enjoy. The only talk show I do find interesting is Craig Ferguson's because he keeps doing things he's never done before. It also helps that Ferguson, unlike the other guys, is willing to allow a bit of spontaneity into the proceedings.

I'll sample Conan O'Brien's new show on TBS in the hope he'll be more like he was during his first ten years on NBC. At some point — around the time Andy Richter left that program — Conan seemed to decide his show was about him being funny and it didn't matter if the guests or anything else was. His last year or so hosting Late Night, I abandoned him for Ferguson and a lot of viewers did, too. My lasting impression of the early Conan series is of a lot of cleverly-written pieces with fresh concepts. Most of what I recall of his last few years is him doing his string dance, making funny faces and trying to top his guests.

Around the time Conan debuts, we're going to have a reopening of the healed sore that was the Tonight Show debacle. The press won't be able to resist rehashing it all, plus there will be new skirmishes. O'Brien has an interview in Playboy next month and you also have Bill Carter's book coming out…the same day Conan debuts on WTBS, in fact. Carter, of course, wrote The Late Shift, which most take as the definitive account of the Leno/Letterman brouhaha, though I have heard other versions from folks involved in those battles. Mr. Carter's new volume — The War for Late Night: When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy — reportedly depicts both men as having done much about which they should be embarrassed but paints Leno more as the injured innocent. If you want to advance-order a copy, here's the place to do it.

In the meantime, the ratings news for late night talk shows is bad all around, though worse for Leno than for Letterman. Their two programs are approximately tied lately and in this case, a tie is probably a moral victory for Dave. That's, of course, if you just view the contest at 11:35 as Dave vs. Jay. Nightline on ABC has pretty consistently been beating both of them. Also worth noting, and it also can be spun a number of different ways, is what's happened with NBC at 10 PM. When Leno's prime-time show was there, it was considered a ratings disaster. The assumption was that more traditional programming at that hour would have to do better. Well, it hasn't. What's there now is drawing lower ratings than The Jay Leno Show did…and costing NBC a lot more. Isn't show business wonderful?

As we discussed here, ratings are generally down for the late night talk shows. It's no longer that big a deal whether Leno's beating Letterman. What's now at issue is whether anyone is watching either. Here's the latest.

A lot of folks in the press have been dying to write the story about how Jay Leno's ratings have collapsed and to say it now doesn't look like it was such a wise idea for NBC to oust Conan O'Brien and reinstate Jay in the time slot. You can certainly spin the current numbers that way, though I'd imagine NBC's spin would be along the lines of, "Hey, if you think Leno's doing poorly now, take a look at our estimates of where O'Brien would now be if we'd left him on." And you could interpret the numbers that way, too.

What's lost in the shuffle is what I think oughta be the lede: All the late night shows, except maybe Nightline, are way down in audience share. Most of the headlines will tell you, for example, that in the second quarter of this year, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno posted its lowest-rated numbers since The Late Show with David Letterman launched on CBS in 1993. This is true. Farther down in the article, they might mention that Letterman is also getting some of the worst numbers he's had on CBS. Also true. Put simply, America is presently bored with that kind of show…and I don't think I'm just projecting because I am.

Back some ways on this blog, there are posts where I extolled my fondness for both Jay and Dave and explained that I TiVo both, watch both, like both. Over the last few years and especially in the last few months, that has changed. Both shows have simply become too predictable, too repetitive, too plastic. Maybe some of it's me but obviously, I'm not the only one who's no longer tuning in. I started getting bored with Letterman some time ago and took him off my TiVo Season Pass list during his mean-spirited, unsportsmanlike rants against Leno. I still believe Jay was fragged by his own network, then swift-boated by his competitors; that he didn't do anything particularly unethical in returning to a job he should not have lost the way he did. What he has been doing wrong, I think, is not doing as good a show as he used to.

I haven't officially given up on that show yet but I have 25 episodes of it sitting on my TiVo, unwatched. Lately, all the other things I TiVo seem more appealing, though every now and then, I watch the monologue of one Tonight Show and then if there's a guest that interests me (and there usually isn't), I jump ahead to view that segment. The monologues used to be sharper, the comedy spots used to be cleverer…and Jay looked less like he had a car waiting outside to speed him off to a private jet and a 10 PM gig in Vegas.

Recently, bandleader Kevin Eubanks departed. The reason, as originally reported, was that Eubanks was tired of the grind and eager to get back to a full-time career in music. That's possible or at least it's believable. What surprised me was that on one of Kevin's last shows, Jay awkwardly mentioned that the entire band was leaving at the same time; that new guy Rickey Minor was bringing in a whole new crew with him. I gather that was not because those musicians all decided at once that they were tired of the grind and eager to get back to a full-time career in music. Kevin may well have left on his own impulse but someone there has to have said, "We need a new sound for this program." Well, they've got it but it isn't making a bit of difference…because what's been wrong with The Tonight Show for some time has not been the music.

My sense is that the program is suffering from a bad case of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." On a show like that which needs material every night, it's real easy to find something that works and beat it to death…and then when it stops working, the instant thought is, "Well, we need to do more of it." Mr. Carson's longevity had a lot to do with being willing to turn loose of old bits…and also that was a different era where folks didn't watch YouTube and get as instantly oversaturated with things. And also, Johnny wasn't on five nights a week, most weeks of the year.

One of Carson's long-time writers keeps making a point to me whenever I see him: "All these new guys —" (He's including Letterman and Leno amongst the new guys) "— will tell you Johnny was the master, Johnny did a talk show better than anyone. But they're all confident they can do their shows without an Ed McMahon…and Johnny thought Ed was an absolute necessity." I think there's some wisdom there.

I liked Conan O'Brien better, the more involved Andy Richter was with his show…and I don't mean just that I liked the show better. I liked Conan as a person better. I always felt he came off as a bit of a show biz phony when he was talking to the audience and as a real nice, funny guy when he was bantering with Andy. I call this the Ed Norton Syndrome. If you take Ralph Kramden alone, he's a loudmouthed guy who lies to everyone and threatens to belt his wife. But put Ed Norton next to him and you see the human side of Ralph. I liked David Letterman better when he seemed to have a closer relationship with Paul Shaffer, too.

Anyway, Leno may develop some solid, on-screen relationship with Rickey Minor but now, when Jay's had so much bad press, was a bad time to lose what he had with Eubanks. It's also a bad time to be doing Pumpcasting for what feels like the eight thousandth time. Those "remote correspondent" bits in which Jay disappears completely from his own show for ten key minutes may be funny the first time or two but they have a short expiration date and I don't think they even serve the outside performers who are brought in to do them. Ross the Intern has become a bit of a celebrity from his spots but the show keeps introducing other folks who do a spot or three, then wear out their welcomes and disappear…in many cases, completely from television. That should be telling the producers something.

The whole show just has a feeling to me of being on Auto-Pilot. Jay runs in and does the monologue — and they've all started to sound alike. He intros the comedy spot that follows. Once a week, it's Headlines, and they've all started to sound alike. Much of the time, it doesn't even involve Jay. Then he goes through interviews with performers who are momentarily hot. Once in a while, it's someone with whom he has some rapport. Most of the time, it's almost-scripted q-and-a right off the cards. Then he intros the band and by that point, he might as well have his car keys out and be edging towards the door.

I'm afraid I don't find Letterman any more interested in his own show…or Kimmel. Or Fallon. The only one of those guys who looks like he ever wonders, "What can I do tonight I haven't done before?" is Craig Ferguson.

So are any of them in trouble? Not right now because at the moment, there's nobody else.

Someone wrote to ask me if I thought Leno would get fired (how many times would this be?) if his numbers don't pick up. They'd probably have to fall for a long time before that happened. First of all, his track record for bounceback is still not one to be quickly dismissed…and secondly, who would you put in there? I haven't heard any names mentioned by anyone in or around NBC and that's how you'll know if and when Jay is in trouble. You'll hear a name and it won't just come from some outside observer. It'll be sourced from somewhere within. That hasn't happened yet.

Letterman's not doing that well either but with him, it's different. He's David Letterman, the only thing CBS has ever had that's worked at that hour. He won't leave until he's good and ready. The next change that's going to happen in late night will be when Conan O'Brien debuts his new show on TBS. The industry consensus, which is not always right about this stuff, seems to be that he'll get a lot of initial tune-in, then settle down to a small but loyal audience that will be profitable but which will not threaten Jay or Dave. If Conan does essentially the same program he did at NBC, that sounds like a safe prediction. If he does something that revolutionizes that kind of show…well, somebody's going to have to.

The Jay vs. Dave battle has been fun in some ways but the real outcome is that the audience out there seems to be bored with both shows. If the respective hosts were more engaged — if this week's shows didn't seem so much like reruns of last week's shows — they could be doing better but I don't think they can ever be Must-See-TV again. At some point, someone is going to come along and reinvent talk shows the way Mr. Letterman once did. Until then, I've got a TiVo and plenty of other channels and DVDs. And I've learned, as so much of America is learning, that you don't absolutely have to watch a talk show after the 11:00 news. Hell, you don't even have to watch the 11:00 news anymore…

As we kinda predicted here, Larry King is giving up his prime-time CNN interview show later this year. I don't know if it was their idea or his, though I suspect the former. If the latter, it's probably Larry getting out before it became their idea. In any case, I bet his last few weeks are a celebrity tribute fest with much talk of how an era is ending, how the torch is being passed, etc.

Keith Olbermann has been Twittering that King's downfall is not a failure of the host but of the format. I think in this case, the host was the format. They're saying Joy Behar may take over the slot and that doesn't sound like the worst idea in the world to me. Or at least, I can't think of anyone better at the moment. The problem is that to make any sort of news-related interview show work, you have to be able to get newsworthy, important guests to come on…and those folks increasingly do not want to go where they will be surprised, challenged and perhaps embarrassed. I often wax here about how the late night shows have gotten way too scripted and lacking in spontaneity. Last time I waxed that way, a writer for one of them wrote me…

What you ask for would be great but the stars won't go for it. The big ones all have agents and managers who want to know exactly what they'll be asked and exactly what will happen. Sometimes when they get here, we'll ask them if they want to stay on the couch when the next guest comes out or participate in the cooking demonstration that will follow their segment. Some will act like you're trying to trick them. "I didn't agree to that." Some will go along with it and the next day the manager calls up and acts like you went behind their back. "I didn't approve that." I think it's in part a YouTube thing. They all know that if they do one embarrassing thing, it will live forever on the net. The guests you want won't go anywhere that won't kiss their asses. They're all like Sarah Palin who won't be interviewed by anyone who won't, like Sean Hannity, set her up for success.

That was one of Larry King's advantages back when he had a huge audience. Guests felt unthreatened. No one who mattered was ever afraid to go on with him. Confrontation might come from another guest — and I'm sure some guests would only agree to go on if there were no other guests — but you could lie, spin and evade all you wanted and there was little chance Larry would say anything. A lot of Jay Leno's success has also come from providing a safe haven for celebs to do their plug and pretty much control how their appearances would go. By contrast, there's a reason Keith Olbermann rarely has guests on — and almost never anyone with different views — and I suspect it's not that his show wouldn't welcome such guests.

The trick to replacing Mr. King is going to be to find a host who can do what Jon Stewart does, which is to create an environment that seems inviting to the biggies but without surrendering to them. Stewart engages his guests and sometimes disagrees with them…but few ever leave feeling so defeated that they don't want to come back. Then again, his show doesn't hinge around attracting a famous name or "hot" newsmaker every night. He can wait for them to come to him.

Joy Behar seems to ask real good questions of the guests on her current, little-watched show but her guests are all either nobodies…or somebodies who have nothing controversial to discuss. I'm not sure these days she or anyone could do the kind of show I'd like to see. I'd like to see important people asked questions for which they don't have prepared, calculated answers and I'd like to see the host call them on it when the answers are disingenuous or at odds with the facts. I'm just not sure anyone could get those people to come on if they did that. To get them to come on, you kinda have to be Larry King.

The Cirque du Soleil folks recently debuted a new kind of show, at least for them: A Broadway circusy-vaudeville extravaganza with, supposedly, an actual plot of sorts. Banana Shpeel opened six weeks ago at the Beacon Theater in New York…and there it will close tomorrow at a loss of somewhere around $20-30 million. What went wrong? This article tries to assess some of that. But it also says that they intend to try, try again.

Obviously, having not seen the show in question, I'm in no position to discuss if the reporter is right or wrong but not knowing what I'm talking about never stops me so I'd like to toss in one thought. Years ago when New York Mayor Ed Koch was finally unreturned to office, he gave a disarmingly candid interview in which he was asked why. I'm paraphrasing but his answer went something like this: "I could blame all sorts of reasons, like the sanitation strike and the city council actions…but the truth is that after a while, no matter who you are, New Yorkers just get sick of you."

I don't think it's just New Yorkers. Sometimes, someone is just so ominpresent and persistent that we all get sick of them. I wasn't even in New York and I was weary of seeing Ed Koch turning up everywhere. I'm going to write a piece here one of these days about the seeming collapse of not only Jay Leno's Tonight Show but to some degree, all the late night shows and I think that's part of it. There was a time when Cirque du Soleil was something special, something different, something to look forward to for months. Now, they're practically opening new companies of it in strip malls…and there aren't that many different ways for tumblers to tumble or for aerialists to aerialate.

I was thinking that when I saw Zumanity in Vegas a few weeks ago. Half the show was the same old, same old…and the other half, the half that was supposed to be unique, was clumsy. If there's anything a Cirque du Soleil show should not be it's clumsy. I dunno how much the oversaturation factor played into the failure of Banana Shpeel but I do know that I used to wait eagerly to see a Cirque du Soleil production and now it's like, "Don't worry…if you miss this one, there'll be another one along in twenty minutes."

One of the things that has lessened my enjoyment of and admiration for Mssrs. Leno, Letterman and O'Brien has been this ongoing playing of the victim card. These are three men who've each gotten about 97% of everything you could ever want in an industry where the average is well under 2%. My Uncle Aaron used to say, "Never feel sorry for anyone who makes more than a million dollars a year." If Uncle Aaron were around today, allowing for inflation, it might be more like ten million a year. Jay, Dave and Conan are all well ahead of that and will probably remain above that level for the remainder of their careers. They're all loved by much of America…all adored by most of their respective staffs…all respected by most of their peers. Somehow, I have trouble feeling someone has suffered a great injustice because he wound up with zillions of dollars and a show that wasn't in Johnny Carson's old time slot.

I'm fascinated, not necessarily in a good way, that people are so passionate about it…and also that the factual recitals are so fact-free. When you come right down to it, this is a pretty simple story, one based in a situation that occurs constantly in network television: Someone in power (or someones, plural) makes an educated guess on what programming choice would get them the most desirable ratings. That's what this game is all about. You're a network programmer. You have to decide what to put on at 9 PM on Tuesday. You look at all your options — cancel what's there, renew it, move something else you have into that slot, buy one of the pilots you developed, etc.

You look at past ratings and any overt or implied trends. You look at audience testing reports. You talk with the folks who'll be producing or supplying those shows and maybe you get a sense of who's worth gambling on. You may consult with affiliates or advertisers or media consultants who study audience demographics. Often, there are political considerations…for example, maybe one of the shows you could buy is from Jerry Seinfeld's company and you'd like to build a relationship with Jerry Seinfeld. That might tip the scale a bit that show's way. There are many factors you might consider but ultimately, it all comes down to playing a hunch. It may be an educated hunch…and often (and this is key to understand) it's less a hunch about what will do well than it is about what will harm you personally less if it doesn't…

But it still comes down to a hunch.

If you're in show business, your life turns on such hunches — your own and others'. You can become rich and famous (or not) because of someone else's hunches. Conan O'Brien got Letterman's old job because Lorne Michaels had a hunch about him. For a time, ratings were iffy and Conan was renewed in tiny increments and even, at one point, briefly cancelled. But various folks had various hunches, as well as a dearth of more promising alternatives, and Conan hung in there until he proved his value. I'm not suggesting that the quality of the show he and his crew produced was irrelevant. It mattered a lot. But he got to keep doing it because someone at the network believed his numbers would improve…and they did.

In 2004, there were folks at NBC, maybe even some of the same folks, who had a hunch Jay Leno's ratings would soon falter and that by 2009, it would look like a great idea to retire Leno and move O'Brien onto the Tonight Show throne. That was maybe not as wise a notion but it also worked to Conan's advantage. He got a new job he wanted badly. If someone else had been in charge at NBC at the time, they might well have said, "What? Cancel Leno when he's #1 and promise Conan that slot? Are you mad?" But the someone who was in charge, reportedly Jeff Zucker, had a hunch.

Conan benefited greatly from that hunch. He didn't do as well with a more recent hunch when some of the same people looked at his numbers as Tonight Show host and decided they were unlikely to ever get to where they wanted them to be, and that Jay stood a better chance of achieving that. Were they right? We'll never know for sure. A lot of armchair programmers on the Internet are prepared to argue that the numbers suggest otherwise.

It's important to remember that the real programmers, the ones who made the decision, have access to much more detailed, extensive viewership data than is available to some guy who goes online and gets the brief, bottom-line summaries that are released to the public. It's also important to remember that network execs, armed with all the information, sometimes make decisions they live to regret. Some at NBC no doubt regret the decision to dump Jay for Conan. They may soon regret dumping Conan for Jay…or even regret not firing both and making an offer to Adam Carolla or Stephen Colbert.

An old pro once said to me that in Show Biz, it was "Live by the hunch, die by the hunch" and that's not a bad way to look at it. One of the reasons I don't have a lot of sympathy for Conan's situation, above and beyond his settlement loot, is that the decision to drop him seems to me no less fair than the one to take the job away from Jay and give it to Conan in the first place. So what you have is Jay and Conan (i.e., two multi-millionaires who even without The Tonight Show have loads of job offers) reaping the benefits of the hunches that went their way and whining about those that didn't.

I think I understand why people whose livelihoods are not linked to Jay's or Conan's care about this. I think it has much to do with how shaky the economy is, these days. More so than usual, Americans are worried about being unjustly or capriciously fired…and depending on which guy you prefer, you can make the case that he was; that the other guy stabbed him in the spine and snatched away the great gig. I just don't think anyone can make the case that either guy is deserving of sympathy or that a great wrong needs to be avenged, and I'm really finding it distasteful for anyone to suggest as much. These are two — three, if you count Dave and we should count Dave — of the most fortunate and successful people who've ever been paid megabucks to interview supermodels and seated stand-up comedians. They'll all continue to do just fine…and that's not a hunch.

I didn't think Jay Leno did so well at the White House Correspondents' Dinner last night. Granted, it's a tough room. Granted, the audio-video limitations of the place make it awkward to show a lot of clips of prepared comedy bits…which is why one probably shouldn't. And granted, President Obama, who spoke before him, had already touched on many of the same topics. But Leno seemed unprepared with his own material, reading it slavishly off cards, and most of it wasn't that strong to begin with. No comedian really does well with that crowd but Jay's performance wasn't up to the standard of a guy with his credentials.

I wish someone would tell him he could, you know, maybe slow down and say no to some things. He did The Tonight Show on Friday, then flew to Washington to appear at that dinner last night. Tomorrow night, he's at the Comedy and Magic Club in Hermosa Beach out here and then Monday, there's a new Tonight Show. He maintained that kind of pace when he was younger and basically doing the same act wherever he went. Now, he's older and playing more important venues and there's new, untested material almost every day and…well, it's really getting sloppy around the edges. When he was at his best, he was terrific.

You can view Leno's routine — it runs about 21 minutes — over here on the C-Span website. He comes across a little better in the web version than he did on my TiVo where the audience seemed more muted. You might also want to catch President Obama's speech (about 18 minutes) over on this page. He got a lot of the laughs that Leno didn't.

Tonight, Conan O'Brien is on 60 Minutes to give "his side" of what went on with all that late night mess. I don't believe him when he says that he wouldn't have done what Leno did, taking The Tonight Show back. Or at least I don't believe NBC would have let O'Brien keep it much longer if Jay had said he wasn't returning to it.

A moment of TV history: Actor Hugh Grant, following his arrest after being caught in a parked car with a prostitute, makes his first post-bust appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

This happened on July 10, 1995 and it gave Leno his first ratings "win" over his competition, David Letterman. The next morning, a CBS exec told the press it was a one-night-only fluke that would never happen again. Leno then beat Letterman for the next eleven years. This led to a belief that somehow, Grant's appearance made that streak happen. In fact, Jay had been gaining steadily on Dave in the months before and surely would have passed him before long. Grant just moved the date up a bit. (There have been plenty of nights since when either Dave or Jay had a monster rating because of a one-time-only event…Dave's return from heart surgery, for instance. Those bumps in the Nielsens never last more than a night or two.)

Here's the segment. I thought it was a fine bit of damage control on the part of Mr. Grant. I don't think most of America cares what celebs do in that vein, and probably figure some of their faves do that kind of thing (or worse) and don't get caught. But they might have cared if Grant had tried to weasel and blame others and not merely admitted he did something wrong…

The White House Correspondents' Dinner is Saturday. It airs on C-Span 1 at 8 PM Eastern, 5 PM Pacific for an alleged ninety minutes. Jay Leno is this year's comedian.

I used to like David Letterman. I liked him a lot as a performer. I liked what I saw of him as a person from our brief encounters and liked what I heard from friends who knew him well. But I liked him a little less after he threw that huge tantrum about not getting The Tonight Show and his recent tirades against Jay Leno strike me as petulant and childish and…well, I think they've pretty much nuked the last bits of affection I had for Dave.

A lady I worked with used to tell me she never watched him because he was always cranky and bitter and filled with contempt for those around him. I told her no…he was clever and funny and the crabbiness wasn't the real guy. It was just comedy. I'm starting to think like her on this. I used to love watching both Jay and Dave…and the end result of the recent Late Night War is that I like Jay a little less and can't watch Dave at all.

To no one's surprise, Jay Leno's return to The Tonight Show won its time slot last night. I am amused by the fact that the New York Times report is headlined, "In Return Engagement, Leno Soundly Defeats Letterman," whereas Tom Shales over on the Washington Post started an online chat about TV proclaiming…

Bad news for Jay Leno fresh to us from ace reporter Emily Yahr in TV Team News Central. PRELIMINARY repeat preliminary ratings show Leno returning with pretty paltry numbers last night — DOWN 24 per cent from Conan's debut night as Tonight Show host, DOWN 55 per cent from figures for Leno's first night in Prime Time.

Talk about trying to spin a story the way you want to see it. Obviously, opening night numbers like that don't prove a lot either way, though I suppose it would have meant something if Jay hadn't won the time slot. Actually, I'd be a little suspicious of any news story on the time slot that parsed it all as Jay versus Dave. Jay's real competition there — the show that's been winning — is Nightline. I know it's more Up Close and Personal to pit Jay against Dave because of their history and because it's more fun to follow a war where the combatants both have faces (Nightline really doesn't) but NBC doesn't care if Jay draws viewers away from CBS or ABC. And for some time now, there have been more tuning in ABC at 11:35.

I thought Jay Leno missed an opportunity on his return Tonight Show to demonstrate that he might have new tricks up his sleeve. Yeah, NBC is probably so desperate to get back his old ratings that there was a natural inclination to try to bring back the old show. Back it came…complete, oddly enough, with the same theme song that got his failed 10 PM program off to such an unexciting start. (I did, however, smile to hear my pal, Wally Wingert, who's been retained from the prime-time show as Leno's announcer.) Bandleader Kevin Eubanks is reportedly leaving in a few weeks or months…but other than that, is there any reason to expect Jay's new show to not feel like a fresh rerun every night?

I like Jay and think he got a bum rap from those who think he somehow kicked Conan O'Brien out. But I've also gotten weary of the repetition…his and Dave's. It's like each guy reached a point years ago when he decided his show was just the way he wanted it and now he goes in every night to do that same show. I know the credo, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," but there's also such a thing as preventive maintenance.

Leno's opening monologue was solid but a bit too familiar…and then he did a remote piece based on the now shopworn premise that if you're from a famous TV show and you haul around a camera, you can get people to go along with darn near anything you want them to do. The best thing about it was that Jay did it himself, rather than dispatch some "correspondent" that you never heard of before and, the way their batting average goes, will probably never hear of again. Then came Jamie Foxx, who was a decent guest, and Olympic skier Lindsey Vonn who sat for a pretty good interview. I don't think any of the late night hosts except Craig Ferguson are good interviewers, but Jay at least seems to like most of his guests and he tries to make them the star of their segments, rather than to just prove he can top them.

How Jay will do, I dunno. Better than Conan did, I'm sure. In all the Sturm und Drang that accompanied the latest Late Night Wars, one topic that went largely unaddressed was why Mr. O'Brien's ratings weren't a lot better. His show deserved more than the numbers it was pulling down and weak lead-ins couldn't have been the only problem, maybe not even the main one. Jay does connect with the audience in a way that Conan didn't at 11:35. (I have a friend at one of the networks who argues that Conan wasn't even connecting that well with the audience his last year or so at 12:35.)

Still, I just find it hard to imagine audiences getting as excited about the second coming of Leno as they were by the first. I thought his 10 PM show suffered from too much familiarity. You get a new time slot — especially a prime-time one — and people are expecting something new. Sometimes, the old and familiar is comforting and people are glad to see it again. But it's a short hop from that to déjà vu and "I've seen this before," especially since the old can look older in a new context. If Leno's resurrected Tonight Show falters, I don't think it'll be because America resents him for taking Conan O'Brien's dream away and leaving Coco with that paltry $43 million consolation prize. I think it'll be because people just feel that, as enjoyable as it might once have been for some, they've seen that show before. Too many times.