Tuesday, January 12, 2010

a letter to NBC.

Dear NBC,

You have fucked up royally. I don't like to drop profanity like that, in the first sentence of blog posts letters, but you deserve it.

Ever since the late-night lineup was changed, I've had an eyebrow raised at the fact that you were moving Jay Leno to a different time. But, you made promises that things would be different, and I foolishly believed you. Basically what you did was present me with The Tonight Show, repackaged and re-named and shoved into a ten o'clock time slot.

It was doomed from the start. I get that a talk show is cheaper to put on the air than a comedy or drama, but there was no way that a show that airs every day of the week was going to beat out new weekly episodes of others shows on other networks. Why? Because if there's a new episode of my favorite drama on, well, I'll just catch Leno tomorrow. Or the next day.

Then there's the issue of Conan not pulling in his audience. What do you expect? You kept Leno on for the older crowd, so they just watch him at ten o'clock and skip Conan. Like Conan himself said, the show was "never given a chance." Having yet another talk show on in prime time isn't going to keep an audience around waiting for The Tonight Show. They just watched a talk show before the news; why watch another one after?

It appears that you have some sort of love affair with Jay Leno, but you can't mix pleasure with business. Contracts were made, torches were passed. Conan was set to inherit The Tonight Show and in turn, Jimmy Fallon took over Late Night. You have such a boner for Leno that you can't stand to let him go, so now you're messing with the tried-and-true NBC late-night line up? That is an absolute disgrace.

Listen. If you were worried about ratings before, you're in a for a big wake-up call, NBC. The number of people planning to boycott your network is growing by the second because you're forcing our beloved Conan out. But we want to keep him, you're saying. Well, clearly he doesn't want to stay if you're going to fuck with the line up. It's time to let Leno go. I'm sure viewers don't need to be weened off of him and onto Conan; just make the switch and allow the new host to thrive in his surroundings.

Conan is an amazing comedian, writer, and host. He has put so much hard work into his career and the shows that he's hosted. Hell, he moved across the country and brought his family with him to take over The Tonight Show. If he goes elsewhere, I will gladly be following and you'll be pretty much dead in my book, and I know plenty of people who have the same opinion. Think carefully about the decisions you make.

Love and kisses,
Cait