A Nagging Fear
Conan O’Brien wrapped up what he considered another strong show on the evening of Wednesday, January 6. The overall trend felt right; the shows were getting positive reviews. All the negative attention in the press was centering on Jay, and how his 10 p.m. show was wrecking the network.
And yet, as he gathered his writing and production group for the postmortem, Conan felt out of sorts. Realizing he was coming across as edgy, he dismissed the group early. Gavin Polone stayed around. Conan’s manager had dropped by the show that night. Nothing seemed in the least wrong about the show to Polone, but he knew Conan well enough to recognize the clouds circling above his star’s head.
“What’s wrong?” Polone asked. “That was a really funny show. Things are going great. The show is growing; you’re doing good work every night. The numbers aren’t there yet, but that’s because of Jay.”
Conan’s glum expression was unchanged. “I just have a bad feeling,” he said. “I just think Jay’s going to hurt me in some way.”
“You’re crazy!” Polone said. What could NBC do? Move Jay back?
That was clearly Conan’s fear.
A former president of the Harvard Lampoon, Conan had dreamed of hosting The Tonight Show since he was a boy. Now that dream seemed somehow jeopardized. He finally went home, with a raging headache. He dropped his things and walked into the spacious country kitchen, where he collapsed onto a couch. His wife, Liza, found him stretched out there.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I think maybe they’re going to cancel Jay,” Conan said. “I just think that guy is going to hurt me.”
“I don’t really see how that’s possible,” Liza said reassuringly.
At six a.m. Pacific time, Thursday, Jeff Zucker was already up, in his room at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, getting ready for his day leading his prospective new bosses on a grand tour of the Universal lot, when he got a call. His top corporate-communications executive and close friend, Allison Gollust, had received an e-mail that morning from one of Jeff’s own media properties. CNBC wanted a reaction to a story someone there had just seen on an obscure Web site called FTVLive: had The Jay Leno Show been canceled? Gollust reported that she had told CNBC she would look into it. She and Zucker agreed that was all they planned to say for the moment.
A short time later, Conan O’Brien slid behind the wheel of his car in his driveway in Brentwood. The first radio news Conan heard cited reports on the Internet that NBC had canceled Jay Leno’s show. Conan listened intently—not a word about The Tonight Show.
At just about that time, Jeff Ross was arriving at the Tonight offices. The show’s staff was buzzing—the rumors were by now aflame all over the Internet, though NBC had not confirmed anything: Jay was supposedly getting canceled.
“Hopefully that’s true,” Ross said, figuring almost anything NBC came up with would improve the 10 p.m. hour and help Conan. But he wasn’t really sure what to think. The uncertainty was only compounded a few minutes later when he got a message from his assistant. Jeff Gaspin wanted to see Jeff Ross—and Conan—in his office as soon as Conan arrived. This immediately struck Ross as a curious and worrisome request. To him the protocol should have been right out of Show Business 101: the network boss can summon the producer to his office, but he never summons the star. That just isn’t done.
A few minutes later Marc Graboff, the co-chairman of NBC Entertainment and the chief Hollywood dealmaker for the network, walked into Jeff Gaspin’s office in response to a similar request for an immediate meeting. Gaspin explained that the Jay story had broken because of an apparent leak by an affiliate, and it was imperative that they break the news to Conan immediately.
Gaspin then put in another call, this one to New York. It was time to let Lorne Michaels, executive producer of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, know that that program was headed for very late night—a 1:05 a.m. start time. The feedback from Lorne, Jimmy Fallon, and Jimmy’s producer, Mike Shoemaker, was all positive. Shoemaker told him, “We love what we’re doing. Don’t worry about us.”
“I appreciate that, guys,” Gaspin said. “I’m really in a shitstorm out here.”
When Conan O’Brien walked into Jeff Gaspin’s office at a little after 10 a.m., his expression said everything. Marc Graboff saw it and realized at once: Conan knows.
The NBC executives greeted O’Brien and Ross formally and stiffly—there was no call for a bogus show of warmth. Gaspin got right to the point—they faced a crisis with the affiliates. NBC’s biannual Press Tour meeting with reporters was around the corner. Something had to be done. So he had come up with this plan: a half-hour of Jay at 11:35 followed by The Tonight Show. “I don’t want to choose between you,” Gaspin explained. Once again he referred to his refusal to make a “Sophie’s choice” out of the situation.
Conan remained calm, totally professional, which impressed both Gaspin and Graboff. Inside he was churning, but part of him was struck by how surreal, farcical almost, the moment felt: Sophie’s choice?
Still keeping his eyes averted, Conan responded, “I completely understand the difficult position you’re in,” but began to lay out his case. It included the commitment that had been made to him in 2004 that Jay would step down and he would inherit The Tonight Show, as well as a rundown on the money he had forsaken by spurning Fox and ABC. If someone had told you six years ago what he was going to do, and you based all your actions on that promise, and then he turned around and reneged on that promise … He had sacrificed a lot of money. He didn’t want to go to the competition; he wanted to be loyal to NBC.
“I get it,” Gaspin said. “It’s not perfect. I’m offering you both half of what you want.” He added, “This has been an unfair situation for both of you.”
But Conan was seeing no equivalency on the fairness meter. Leno had hosted The Tonight Show for 17 years. He had handed it over and immediately shifted to 10 o’clock, voluntarily. How, Conan asked himself, could any of this be construed as unfair to Jay?
“I know how hard I worked for this,” Conan told the NBC executives. “It was promised to me. I had a shitty lead-in.” His tone was soft, but the words were clipped. Graboff knew this was Conan in the raw, speaking from the heart.
Conan asked if Lorne knew; how about Jimmy Fallon? Gaspin said he had spoken to both of them already. He then urged Conan to give the idea some time, take it in, think about it.
Conan listened to Gaspin, still with a faraway look in his eye. Finally he did have something he really wanted to say, something that was all but burning a hole in his chest. “What does Jay have on you?” Conan asked, his voice still low, his tone still even. “What does this guy have on you people? What the hell is it about Jay?”
Neither of the NBC executives had an answer and cast their heads down. Conan thought they were working at looking sympathetic, following some lesson that had been taught at corporate school.
