the shrewdness of apes

I'm amazed by this too - not just by NBC's ridiculous commitment to two people for what will amount to at least 7 years or so - probably more - but at Conan's decision to go for this deal.

Is having that particular show on his resume so important that he knows it's worth waiting 5 years for? Five years seems like a long time to me - by the time he takes over he will have hosted "Late Night" for over 15 years (and I agree with you - it's become significantly less interesting) - and then he gets to "start over" with another show an hour earlier (and will he move to LA for it?)? Letterman's CBS show is now more than 10 years in and I think even he'd agree that it's tough to watch that tired late night formula for a full hour two times a week, let alone five.

Late night TV is in bad shape. "The Daily Show" works because it's not all Jon Stewart all the time - the correspondents break up the show and keep him in the background for part of it - and the fact that they keep most guests to only one segment helps too. 30 minutes is perfect - and an hour would be too long even for a show that's this consitently well-written and produced.

"Charlie Rose" works because it's more conversational and gives you a chance to really find something out about the person being interviewed. Of course, the guests are not always interesting - and Charlie doesn't always prepare for them properly, asking ill-informed, irrelevant or unnecessary questions, but if it's a guest you're intrerested in, it can be worth watching.

As for "Nightline," ABC would have killed it already if it weren't for the fact that it regularly beats the show that was supposed to replace it - and now that Jimmy Kimmel has abandoned the rotating weekly co-hosts (the only compelling part of the show), his totally uncompatible show is pretty close to unwatchable.

Meanwhile, CBS at 12:30 is using a wheel of lame C-list guest hosts to replace Craig Kilborn - I saw some of them last week and the show is now so half-assed that it's barely better than the weekly JMU campus show "Hey U." It's obviously a stopgap (but until they find who?) and at this point they'd be better off showing repeats of other CBS shows instead.

Letterman & Koppel will almost certainly be off the air within 5-7 years, and there's no one in the wings for either. I'll be surprised if Jimmy Kimmel lasts that long as well. I can sort of understand NBC's need to go on the defensive and prevent Conan from going to FOX or someplace else now, and I can sort of understand Conan if he's getting a lot of money and security, but by the time we get to 2009, who do they think is going to be fired up to watch?

Can they stop fucking around and just give the dog puppet a show already?! He's a thousand times funnier than Leno and Conan put together.

i think Conan's great goal in life has always been to host the Tonight Show. he grew up obsessed with the notion and the chance to finally make it happen is impossible to pass it up. i just wonder if he'll tread water for the next five years until finally getting to hit the big time. as a former die hard fan of Conan i find the show impossible to watch these days. the interviews are grating and the bits are stale and his constant repetition of self directed insults and zany "hot-cha" type shit is offensive. the plugging! the mugging! it's too much to bear.

It is kinda sad that the funniest bits on Conan these days are when he shows clips of "Walker, Texas Ranger." And even that he overuses. He really needs to axe a lot of the stale bits he's been using since the show started: the SAT analogies, the stamps, the kids' drawings. All are lame. Bring back the masturbating bear (or, for that matter, the bear/angel thing).

i think the masturbating bear is one of the most overrated things Conan has ever done. never fails to elicit a "meh" from me. you can't blame Conan for jumping at this chance, though. it is still one of the most prestigious jobs on TV, even if only in title at this point. Triumph does deserve his own show, but his schtick can wear thin pretty quickly sometimes too.

i agree...people need to realise the brilliance of moderation. a little goes a long way. didn't ramona quimby's father says something like: "First time it's cute, second time it's funny, third time it's a spanking." i wholeheartedly agree.

I think JP the younger is right that Conan has had some weird obsession with the Tonight Show job forever, almost like a little girl who determined years ago that one day she would marry the guy from JAG and who hasn't outgrown the fantasy, still drawing pictures of herself next to photos of him she's pasted on purple construction paper even though she's now a 23-year-old cubicle drone. Or something like that.

Does anyone really think that the bloated, milquetoast, George Bush-tolerant ignoramuses who continually propel Leno's ratings to the top of the late-night heap will go for Conan's brainy-college-boy-drunk-on-too-much-Schnapps shtick?

And I agree about Conan's now unwatchable status. A couple years back I was still tuning in near-nightly, but I gave up for good when he made multiple painfully unfunny Anna Nicole Smith jokes every night for like two weeks in a row.

I really did use to like those "in the year 2000" segments. I can still crack myself up by singing that theme.

Also must say, Mitch: great comments. You are an amazingly astute media critic. If I retire my blog, will you promise to start one? I think I'm already out of things to say.

I echo Jim's comments on Mitch's post. Fantastic. As I got to the part about Jimmy Kimmel, I was beginning to think that Tom Shales or some other pro had wandered in. Not sure that Jim should ditch his blog, but Mitch should be considered as a replacement for the media critic at Slate, once the Wa Post buys it.

Did anyone watch Leno's "announcement" last night on his show? Conveniently located after a montage of Carson clips and a birthday cake from Oprah that featured the four pre-Conan "Tonight" hosts on their own Mount Rushmore (!), Leno said that he wanted to let Conan have his shot but reassured his loyal (sleeping with the set on?) viewers that he wasn't quitting the business, just leaving the show.

Wouldn't it have seemed more of an "NBC family" moment if Conan had actually been there for the announcement?

I am a big fan of everyone's websites and check them often; for some reason this topic fired me up, so thanks for reading and giving me some feedback.

I thought about this announcement more today and how foolish it really is to do it now. For one thing, I completely agree with Jim - the difference in sensibility between Leno's audience and Conan's is even greater than it was between Carson and Letterman - and that was when NBC was pretty much the only game in town for late night comedy. Network TV audiences are shrinking every year and who's to say that by the time Conan goes to 11:30 some of his audience won't have become more interested in another show that's already there?

Is NBC resigning itself to hope that Conan will bring whatever (possibly dwindling) audience he has left at 12:30 five years from now to 11:30 and maybe get a few Leno stragglers who don't switch the channel to join in or are they going to spend the next five years hyping Conan as being the next big thing?

If they were smart, they'd do what they inadvertenly did with Leno. Carson didn't tape five days a week for many years, so instead of showing repeats, they had guest hosts - Garry Shandling, Joan Rivers and a bunch of other people and then eventually (and exclusively) Jay Leno. I may be wrong but I think this was a "Tonight Show" decision and not an NBC decision, so I don't think the network can get the credit, but at least viewers familiar with that brand became familiar with Leno before he took over the show.

I think it would be in NBC's interests to figure something like that out now - if Leno doesn't want to take a day off each week, maybe they should stagger the two shows' vacation weeks so that instead of showing Leno repeats for a full week at 11:30 you'd show new episodes of Conan's show during the earlier slot and give everyone a taste of what's to come. It may even help Conan's show become less stale - if only for a few days at a time.

So far this reminds me a lot of the way NBC handled its national news desk "transfer of power" - and has the country really been frenzied with anticipation for the past two years (or however long it's been) knowing that Brian Williams is taking over for Tom Brokaw after the election?

In the meantime, Jon Stewart is scheduled to be on Charlie Rose's show tomorrow night (Wed.). If Charlie preps for the interview, it would be cool to see them talk about the politics of late night.

mitch, thanks for letting us know about jon stewart's appearance on charlie rose. i watched last night and found it to be the kind of interview you'd never see on the shows where pushing product is the goal. a fascinating talk.