Looking at the Tonight Show’s Conan / Jay Battle from a Political Perspective

By pdo | Published: March 21, 2010

As happy as I am to see Conan O’Brien on Twitter and the rise of Team CoCo, I’m saddened by the way he was ushered off NBC.  When everything went down, there were two stories that came forward as explanations:

  1. NBC’s — Conan’s ratings are poor, therefore we cannot afford to continue.
  2. Conan’s — Network incompetence is hurting the show, we’ll be able to figure it out with more time.

In hindsight, both contained some truth, but incompetence played a fairly big role in Conan’s failure.  Here’s how a little different thinking would have allowed him to succeed.

A TV Exec’s Dream

The hope was simple: bring in Conan and attract a younger audience; spin off Jay and grow his older audience with an earlier show.  That may make perfect logical sense to a TV executive — create two hit shows to double traffic.  But if you ask any political analyst, it is, as Sarah Palin would say, retarded.

The Political Reality

What NBC basically engineered was a Gore / Nader or a Bush / Perot situation.  They created a viable third party that siphoned votes from the main players.  People that would have chosen Conan’s Tonight Show if given two options were given a third option — Jay’s earlier show.  This group abandoned Conan’s show and didn’t stick around to watch more comedy later in the evening.   Jay’s ratings were abysmally low, but if added to Conan’s they would have likely put him ahead in the Dave vs. Conan battle.  By allowing Jay to have an earlier show, NBC ensured Conan’s failure.  And by fracturing the NBC audience, they ensured more people would give David Letterman another look.

And all this fits with the way the Tonight Show was handed off last time.  Johnny Carson didn’t spin off into an earlier slot — he turned into a recluse and was nowhere to be found.

So Conan, sorry man.  Can’t wait to catch your live show.

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  • tg55
    Interesting blog, Paul. Related to your political perpective is the generational one: Jay Leno (part of Baby Boom Generation, born 1942-1953) vs. Conan O'Brien (part of Generation Jones, born 1954-1965) reflects a broader battle happening throughout Western cultures: the emergence of Generation Jones leadership vs. Boomers clinging to power. GenJoneser Obama's ascendance following 16 years of Boomer Presidencies is the most visible example, but we find it throughout the West, where more than two thirds of EU leaders are part of GenJones (following two decades of Boomer dominance).

    Google Generation Jones, and you’ll see it’s gotten lots of media attention, and many prominent commentators from many top publications and networks (Washington Post, Time magazine, NBC, Newsweek, ABC, etc.) now specifically use this term. In fact, the Associated Press' annual Trend Report chose the Rise of Generation Jones as the #1 trend of 2009. I found this page helpful because it gives a pretty good overview of recent media interest in GenJones: http://generationjones.com/2009latest.html

    It’s important to distinguish between the post-WWII demographic boom in births vs. the cultural generations born during that era. Generations are a function of the common formative experiences of its members, not the fertility rates of its parents. And most analysts now see generations as getting shorter (usually 10-15 years now), partly because of the acceleration of culture. Many experts now believe it breaks down more or less this way:

    DEMOGRAPHIC boom in babies: 1946-1964
    Baby Boom GENERATION: 1942-1953
    Generation Jones: 1954-1965
    Generation X: 1966-1978
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