Done deal. The Tonight Show with Jay Leno from 11:35 – 12:35. Conan O’Brien: SOL.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
The Tonight Show With Jay Leno
Jeff Immelt, Brian Roberts: Jeff Zucker Has Got To Go
Jeff Gaspin – What The Hell Was That?
The Jay Leno Show cancellation announcement by Jeff Gaspin – Chairman NBC Entertainment – was handled in just about the worst way possible. It should have so simple: Announce the news; admit it was mistake and talk about the exciting changes to come. That’s it.
Instead, Jeff Gaspin’s announcement at the TCA Winter Press Tour was a stunning display on how not to do something. He was defensive (even blaming other parts of the company) and basically said he didn’t really know what they were going to do next.
Let’s break down the key quotes:
Gaspin: “I would have liked nothing more than to give this (The Jay Leno Show) a 52-week try.” (You’re the freakin’ Chairman of NBC Entertainment – don’t you have the power to give it a try for as long you’d like no matter who is against it? Especially if you would have ‘liked nothing more’?
Gaspin: “This was not an issue for the network…” (No, of course not, NBC kicks ass! Fourth place ass. But it still kicks ass!)
Gaspin: “… it was an issue for our affiliates.” (That’s it, blame another part of your company. One great leadership trait is knowing whom should be blamed in a time of crisis.)
Gaspin: “We were making money at 10 p.m. I think, over time, (‘Leno’s’ ratings) might have started to grow. For the network, it was not yet a wrong decision.” (You really went out on a limb on that one. ‘It was not yet a wrong decision?’ What the fuck is that? Come on, Jeff, just say ‘Yes, it was the wrong decision. We failed but we’re going to fix it.’ The culture at NBC has got to change. When the Chairman of the company is afraid of accountability, what hope is there for the rest of the executive team?)
So, Jeff, was “Leno” a mistake?
Gaspin: “I don’t think it’s wrong to take chances. We might have been too early on this one.” (Ah, I see… you’re just ahead of your time. The world is not ready for the bold programming choices coming from NBC. The world is not ready for a powder puff monologue followed by lame celebrity interviews at 10pm. Fight on, lone ranger, one day the world will catch up to your vision.)
You want to know how to avoid a “PR Issue”, Jeff – nut-up and take the blame for a mistake. Obviously, your boss Jeff Zucker is too much of a wimp to acknowledge failure. As I said in October, it’s a stupid TV show that didn’t work – it’s not that big of a deal. It was a programming choice that didn’t work. Simple as that.
Now, get out there and make the best “Law & Order” spin-off that you can.
Godspeed, Jeff Gaspin.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
Ben Silverman’s DumbDumb Deal
Yes, this deal is as DumbDumb as you can get.
How to build a successful startup: Step #1 – Use Barry Diller’s money to fund a vanity production label with a friend from high school.
Yes, Jason Bateman and Will Arnett (in particular) are talented guys but anyone who thinks they will spend any real time on this venture is out of their minds.
Sure, we’ll get the standard Will Ferrell-type Funny of Die videos of Bateman and Arnett walking around with a steady-cam eating Doritos and improvising about how easy this internet stuff is – but will anything of value come out of DumbDumb?
Ben Silverman knows the answer to this and laughs at how DumbDumb some people must be.
I would imagine Barry Diller also knows the answer. Unfortunately, he’s the ultimate DumbDumb in this equation for funding Electus in the first place.
But for now… it’s all just so exciting. I know I’m just a cockeyed optimist, but I just can’t wait for Ben to change the world again. And I’m super glad that they took the time out of the arduous process of building the successful DumbDumb business model to appear in Las Vegas for the announcement (along with the awesomely hilarious Notional CEO Lord Ricky Van Veen).
I just hope it’s not the same business model that Ben Silverman developed for Electus: Spend $100 million on the development (but not the execution) of digital content and when that money is gone – launch another start-up with another sugar daddy.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
Jeff Zucker – It’s Time To Suck It Up
OK, Jeff, it’s time for you to man-up, nut-up, suck-it-up, eat-it (all those things) and fix this late night issue before it becomes even more of a train wreck.
It’s very simple:
- Fire Conan O’Brien and give him all the compensation he is owed as part of a separation deal. (Don’t be a pussy, Jeff, let Conan go to Fox or ABC (or wherever) and pull in an average 2.3/5 share. Who cares?);
- Re-install Jay at 11:35 on The Tonight Show and be done with it. (Jay will quickly become the late night King again because my grandmother “really likes those headlines”);
- Find some old Law & Order’s laying around that you can air until you develop a couple of decent shows.
Yes, you may have to deal with a couple of months of bad press (“NBC Screwed Conan”… “Jay Not The Right Man”… “Jeff Zucker Sucks At His Job”… etc.) but it will pass and things will be back to where they were last May (with NBC in fourth place – but not late night). It will all be like a horrible dream and we’ll all wake up with Bobby Ewing in the shower.
But these steps need to be taken immediately. In order to save you some time, I’ve drafted your opening comments at the press conference that you should have this afternoon:
“Good afternoon. Thank you for coming. [Insert Nikki Finke joke here – something about her always being prompt and in the front row.] I’d like to take a few moments to discuss our line-up of new dramas at 10pm which will premiere after The Vancouver Olympics. Just kidding – we don’t even have a fucking pilot!
No, I’m here to discuss The Jay Leno Show situation.
[cameras clicking – reporters jostling for position]
Last year, I made a horrible mistake. Ben Silverman actually made the mistake… but I digress.
For some asinine reason, we thought we could put Jay Leno on at 10pm and people would actually watch it. I thought our affiliates would be so happy to have a topical program hosted by one of America’s most beloved comedians as a lead in to their local news.
I was way fucking wrong on that assumption.
It could have been worse. I could have announced that we were merging with AOL or that I had re-hired Ben Silverman to run the network.
So… in order to make things right. I am officially reinstating Jay Leno to The Tonight Show and have paid off the remainder of Conan O’Brien’s contract so that he may pursue other opportunities at other networks. Conan was a great asset to NBC and a huge talent and we wish him nothing but the best – but we’ve decided to go back to Jay at 11:35.
Anyone who has an drama series ideas or any pilots in the can, please have them delivered to Angela Bromstad’s house immediately.
I will now take your questions.”
Do it, Jeff. It’s not too late to fix things.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
The Jay Leno Show – R.I.P.
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message The Jay Leno Show is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
Jay at 10pm was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that show would last forever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
W.H. Auden
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Yes, Ben Silverman and Jeff Zucker really changed the future of television. Actually, no… they didn’t. They didn’t at all.
After all the bravado and presentations.. all the parties and press conferences with claims of blowing up business models and television never being the same… what do we have left? Jay Leno on The Tonight Show at 11:30 and scripted dramas at 10pm.
It’s now up to Ben Silverman’s Electus to change the world. Come on, Ben, you can do it – put down the blonde and get to work.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
Notional – R.I.P.
The revolution is over… and what a crappy revolution it was.
Notional – the only company to ever come up with the idea for a dating show in a taxi; a competitive cooking show; a home makeover show; as well as several shitty internet game shows in development including “Ready, Set, Dance”, “You vs. America” and “Chase the Money” – is dead.
Yes, I realize Notional hasn’t got up on its feet yet – but, based on the announcement of the “slate” today, Notional IS creatively dead. Physically, they’re still on life support and won’t be dead until 2011 or so (thus the tombstone – thanks, R).
Oh, well. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what content visionary (and current Notional CEO) Ricky Van Veen will think up next. Hopefully something that will have the same forward-thinking press release that mentions words like “revolutionary” and “ground-breaking.”
I must apologize to Barry Diller and all IAC shareholders for killing off his two latest content creation ventures before they really got started – (I killed Ben Silverman’s cure for what has been a cancer of bad content and business models on the internet, Electus, a couple of weeks ago… also before the launch) – but it had to be done.
Come on, Ricky, freakin’ internet game shows? Who gives a shit? You were so clever until you started spending Barry Diller’s money. What does he get for making you rich? You… trying to make him poor.
The only show you could produce that could possibly work is you and your new best friend Ben Silverman going out every night and partying your brains out then putting your escapades up on the internet for everyone to see. You could actually erect the elusive paywall on that one. Just imagine it… you, Ben and hot chicks in bars… X-rated.
THAT is programming only you guys can do in just the right pathetic way. And THAT is your only competitive advantage.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
Electus – R.I.P.
I realize that Electus – the earth-shattering, ground-breaking, cutting-edge new business from Ben Silverman and Barry Diller’s IAC/ InterActiveCorp hasn’t launched, but I have recently climbed aboard Khan Manka, Jr.’s Time Machine and gone into the not-too-distant future to retrieve the press release announcing (sadly) the company’s closure. Sorry, Ben.
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From the Associated Press (July 2011):
Electus, the $100 million start-up from media wunderkind Ben Silverman has decided to close its doors effective immediately after only 18 months in business. 875 staffers (mostly low-level hot chicks in their 20s who ran errands and stuff) were expected to lose their jobs. The highly-touted venture only managed to produce one original internet series – a show about bed-hopping young flight attendants based at O’Hare International Airport called “The Hub”.
Electus, announced by Mr. Silverman with much fanfare in July 2009 (after a completely disastrous run as Co-Chairman of NBC Entertainment), was supposed to change the entertainment landscape with the unoriginal idea of marrying advertising, content and distribution in a new media world.
Mr. Silverman was unavailable for comment but released a statement through his representatives: “I am proud of my accomplishments at Electus. Even though $100 million doesn’t go as far as it used to, I still changed the world! No one has even come close to doing what I did because nobody had the balls. What a ride! Maybe people just aren’t ready for forward-thinking.”
Mr. Diller was available for comment and simply said about Silverman: “Fuck that guy.”
But don’t worry about Ben. He has landed on his feet and will continue his Quixotic quest to monetize online content from his penthouse suite at The Palms Hotel in Vegas. Goldman Sachs
has committed $500 million to fund his new, as yet, unnamed venture.
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Oh, yeah, one other thing I learned from the future: The Jay Leno Show was canceled in 2010 and called one of the greatest failures in the history of television. Sorry, Ben.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
Ben Silverman – Fortune’s 40 Under 40?!
Seriously, Fortune? Are you fucking kidding me? What, will you sell 15 more magazines with him on the list? Couldn’t come up with that 40th name?
What about Jeff Weiner – he’s under 40 and was named CEO of LinkedIn. That’s a pretty big job and the site actually makes money and is relevant.
Ben Silverman is irrelevant. Everyone needs to please stop with the ‘Ben Silverman is great’ shit.
If (and this is about the biggest fucking ‘if’ I’ve ever written) Barry Diller and Ben Silverman put together a company that changes the media landscape and makes the world a better place, put him on your list next year. Oh, yeah, he won’t be UNDER 40 next year. Sorry, Ben.
Well, OnMedea is putting together our own list: ONMEDEA’S TOP 40 FAILURES UNDER 40 and Ben Silverman is in the running for the top of that list.
Check back here next week for all the exciting details.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
Ayn Rand Was NOT A Conservative
There was a story posted on The Daily Beast by Rebecca Dana titled AYN RAND POWER DRESSING in which she writes:
“Ayn Rand–author of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, mother of Objectivism, and the conservative movement’s most rapacious cougar–leapt back into popular culture this year as the hero of the Obama-hating far-right.
But it’s not just Glenn Beck and his minions who are drawing inspiration from the writer, who died in 1982. This fall, the dowdy Russian émigré is en vogue with a whole different set: the free-wheeling, Obama-loving, arugula-eating fashion world.”
Now, I do not follow the antics of Glenn Beck (though I may follow a few of “his minions” depending who they are) and I realize that Rebecca Dana did not actually call Ayn Rand a Conservative (just “the movement’s most rapacious cougar”)… but I just need to put down for the record that she was a staunch anti-Conservative and actually speaks with an almost hatred of them in this extensive audio interview (about 3:30 into the interview she states “I am not a Conservative nor is Objectivism a Conservative philosophy.”):
http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=reg_ar_cvo
For readers of Ms. Dana’s blog who may not actually research her statements, I fear they would form a completely wrong opinion of Ayn Rand – especially by carelessly linking Ms. Rand to Glenn Beck. (Having done a little quick research on Mr. Beck, I will refrain from opining on him as I do not want to draw the bloodthirsty freaks in his audience into this discussion.)
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea