An open letter to the viewing public, January 12, 2010
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An open letter to the viewing public, January 12, 2010
To my fellow citizens of the broadcast world,
I wish I could address you today with good news. Unfortunately, we all know this is not the case. After what appeared to be an orderly transition of Late Night power, darkness has fallen across the nation, but not where it was expected.
No, Late Night has soldiered on, borne into the twenty-teens on the shoulders of a slew of talented writers and a man with the question mark in his name. Instead, the darkness begins at 10 p.m., 9 p.m. Central, ends an hour later, then after 30 minutes, picks up once again for another hour. I am talking, of course, about the troubles that surround the Jay Leno Show and the Tonight Show.
It is easy, even shortsighted, to place the blame on Jay Leno. After all, he natters a great deal, is richer than Jesus, and, like myself, has a Ford Festiva, only his has a rocket engine strapped to the back of it. However, with Jay as happy as he was in the Tonight Show slot, do you really think he wanted to give it up?
Of course not. NBC, believing they needed to avoid the sort of conflict that took place when they chose Leno over Letterman to replace Carson, determined six years ago that Leno should leave, and that Conan should take his place. When it became apparent that Leno did not want to leave, they gave him a different five hours of holding up clippings from small-town newspapers before Conan to keep him from going to another network.
As anyone could have predicted, this was a failure. Five prime-time hours a week of an outmoded talk show may have worked when we had two networks and panicked viewers attempted to duck out of the way of trains that filled their tiny television screens, but no longer.
Now, NBC has realized the error of its ways and is attempting to return Leno to his old time slot, compressing his show to half an hour, and moving everyone else back to the next morning.
By seeking to please everyone, NBC has merely awakened the slumbering dragon that is the television viewing public.
We must let Jeff Zucker know that we will no longer stand for his wishy-washy bullshit. He made a decision. He should stick by it, or fall on the sword himself, thereby letting his successor make the next move.
And how do you do this? Call NBC and let them know how you feel. Write a concise postcard, letting them know you won’t watch the E.R. reunion they had planned for sweeps week, or anything else, for that matter, because they don’t want of deserve your patronage. Don’t tweet “#teamconan” or “#teamjay.” That is just the kind of divisiveness the suits at NBC want. Tweet “#turnoffNBC” or “#firejefffucker.” But most of all, to let them know that we stand together, tweet “#votejoegarden.”
This is not an end. This is a beginning of a new era. We will not curse a darkness, we will turn on the TV and be guided by its soothing light. For next time, there won’t be the promise of an election. Next time, we take what we want.
My name is Joe Garden, and I will be the host of Last Call.
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