Leno-O'Brien Rivalry Has No Winners

CLEVELAND - With the entangled mess that has been going on in late night television the past few weeks, I decided to wait until some sort of conclusion was reached in the Jay Leno-Conan O'Brien rivalry. Sad to say, us fans of late-night comedy are the ones who ultimately lose.

And that bites.

Leno, who hosted the venerable The Tonight Show for 17 years, was essentially given the ax last year in favor of O'Brien, who became the show's new host in May. Leno was inactive for a few months, until he re-emerged with The Jay Leno Show, a low-budget ripoff of The Tonight Show in an earlier time slot; the kiss-of-death 10PM position. Putting Leno in primetime was a disaster almost from the beginning, as he's had to face-off with popular crime dramas on other networks. As a result, his ratings have been awful.

O'Brien, meanwhile didn't necessarily set the world on fire in the 11:35PM slot. He consistently trailed David Letterman in the same slot, especially after Letterman's controversial extortion scandal hit in early October. Earlier this month, NBC admitted that Leno's variety show wasn't working at 10PM and that it was cancelling the show. This left Leno in limbo, and ignited the chain reaction with O'Brien and Jimmy Fallon, whose show airs at 12:35AM.

Clearly, there is loyalty to both Leno and O'Brien and both men enjoyed major support from fans and celebrities. O'Brien declared that he wouldn't stand for being bumped to 12:05AM in favor of Leno having a half-hour show at 11:35PM. That opened the door for NBC to essentially eliminate him and reinstate Leno as the host of The Tonight Show. O'Brien (who hosted his final episode of Tonight last Friday) was reportedly bought out of his contract for around $45 million, and can't sign with another network until September. Leno will return to his former perch on March 1, but in spite of that and the fact that O'Brien will likely land on his feet with his pick of suitors, the entire mess will hurt those of us who admire both men. I, for one think that Leno is often funny and occasionally hilarious, and O'Brien's frequent self-deprecation endears him and augments his stunningly brilliant comedic talents.

With months to wait for things to return to "normal" in late night, we are being robbed. Letterman has enjoyed the confusion, since he was famously involved in a similar situation in the early 1990's. I hope Leno returns to his standard of quality during his forthcoming return. I also hope that O'Brien comes back with a vengeance in the fall on his new network--whichever one that may be. Yes, in the long term, us fans of both men will probably win out. But for the in between time, we will suffer.

And that's a shame.