This is my email reply to someone who asked me about this same thing last week. I cut & pasted it, so if it's jacking up the board, let me know and I'll remove it.
My Thoughts on the late night mess;
I’ve never been a Conan fan. If I had to guess, I’d say I’ve probably watched portions of maybe five or six shows of his – first & last Late Night, first few Tonight Shows, and bits from a few others. His style seems to be a touch narcissistic, which I don’t really dig. For me, I feel he’s tarnished the Tonight Show because he comes across as though he’s bigger than the show and its 60 year history.
He didn’t take over as host of the Tonight Show - so much as he just moved his old show into the earlier time slot and called it the Tonight Show. On the few episodes I watched – I couldn’t really tell the two apart, other than a set change. Because of that, I’m not terribly concerned with where he ends up.
Leno, on the other hand, I’ve been a big fan of since his stand-up days in the late 70s\early80s. I made a point of watching him whenever I could. I’ve spoken to him a few times in person, at a motorcycle hangout we both used to frequent in the 80s, and he seems like a nice guy. I’ve also read his autobiography and again, he seems like a nice, genuine guy.
That said, when Leno was hosting the Tonight Show, I watched maybe twice a week – almost never for the guests, just for the monologues and features – Jaywalking, Headlines, Mr. Brain, etc. I think he’s much more interesting and much more humorous.
The New York Times did a lengthy piece on all of this last week. One of the things they pointed out is that the promise of Conan getting the Tonight Show was actually a contract demand made by Conan, under threat to leave for a competing network or be paid-out. It’s not really poor Conan being mistreated by NBC. It’s Conan’s ego not being able to deliver ratings and viewers. To me, his open letter to “people of Earth” feels like more of the same – ego disguised as humility.
Here is the article; http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/08/business/media/08leno.html?ref=media
Aside from the poor ratings of both shows (Conan’s Tonight Show ratings are the lowest in the show’s history), here are two passages that help explain how it got to this point,;
“The exact terms of Mr. O’Brien’s contract are not known, but he is rumored to have built into the deal he made five years ago to stay at NBC a guarantee that he would host “The Tonight Show” or NBC would owe a penalty of as much as $45 million.”
“For Mr. Leno, who made no secret that he was unhappy about being moved from “The Tonight Show,” the change represents something of a vindication, even if his crown has been tarnished by his 10 p.m. experience.”