Ocassional Thoughts of an Independent Progressive Atheistic Humanist
As the NBC Late Night battle goes on I wanted to show my support for Conan O’Brien who told NBC that he would not host “The Tonight Show” if it was moved to “tomorrow”. Good on him.
used with permission of http://www.sirmikeofmitchell.com/imwithcoco/
The news broke on Thursday that the NBC network planned to end the failed experiment of having Jay Leno doing a show at 10 PM weeknights. According to the ratings and the local network affiliates, Leno’s show is failing and hurting the local stations’ late news. Normally what happens is when a TV show is failing the show can get canceled but in this case, NBC may do something that screws their Tonight Show host Conan O’Brien – again.
Let me go back to the beginning.
Four or five years ago Jay Leno indicated he didn’t plan to be the host of the Tonight Show for 30 years like Johnny Carson did. The guy never spent his money from hosting the show, hardly took any time off, and continued to do his stand up act on the weekends and make other appearances. It was claimed at the time that Jay wanted to move on at some point and do other things.
NBC then decided to go ahead and name a new host so as to avoid the awful events of 1992 when Johnny Carson retired from the show and Jay and David Letterman, Johnny’s pick to host, battled for the spot. NBC picked Jay and Letterman bolted to CBS.
The network wanted Conan O’Brien, the host the Late Night show following Jay. It seemed in order to do that NBC had to pick a firm date for the transition to retain O’Brien. It picked 2009.
All was right in the world again.
Then Jay Leno changed his mind.
Within months after the deal was announced, he started to complain that he didn’t want to leave as host of the Tonight Show. The ratings were decent and he enjoyed doing the show.
NBC was shocked. It now had to do something to keep Jay from going to another network and competing against O’Brien at the 11:35 PM hour. So it hit on the bright idea to give Jay the 10 PM slot weeknights. It would make him happy, the network could save some money by not having to fill the time with expensive programing, and Conan remained host of the Tonight Show. Jay accepted and all was right in the world.
Then the TV viewers spoke.
After the hosting switch and in September when Jay’s new show started ratings went downhill. The affiliates got mad because those poor ratings hurt their local news and Conan’s ratings then got hurt too.
NBC is planning to do something as it spent time on Thursday in meetings with the hosts and staff of both shows. The speculation is that Jay will go back to 11:35 PM for 30 minutes and then the Tonight Show will move to 12:05.
And all is right with the world again…. uh wrong.
Leno’s show sucked. He was off the air for 3 or 4 months – AND had 5 years of planning – to start the new show and all he ended up doing was rearrange the set and put on a new coat of paint. The Jay Leno Show was just the Tonight Show without the name. He added a couple of segments like video of guests driving cars around a track but 90% of his show is all the old stuff he did on the Tonight Show. It looks like he thought the reason the Tonight Show had good ratings was because of him alone. Wrong.
The reason the Tonight Show got good ratings was because it is THE Tonight Show and because Hugh Grant got caught with a hooker. Jay had nothing to do with it. At first Jay had also started a booking war and other behind the scenes problems that led to removing his long time manager as producer. His Tonight Show had been number one in the ratings for that time slot even as it lost viewers as NBC programing in general lost viewers putting the net in 4th place. Had it not been for Hugh Grant and his hooker, Jay might have been replaced as host a long time ago.
So NBC is going to reward Jay for changing his mind and tanking the 10 PM time slot rather than cutting him loose like they should have done when the transition took place last year.
Conan O’Brien, who is the future for their late night show, got the shaft when Jay changed his mind and got the 10 PM slot and now they seem ready to shaft him again by letting Jay come back at 11:35.
Welcome 2010. Hope this year is better than the last. For nice first of the new year post here is video of the Findlay High School Band marching in the Orlando Citrus Parade earlier today.
Different critics have their “best of…” lists coming out this week as we get ready to end the first decade of the 2000’s. I thought I might add what I think are the major touchstones of the decade. These are events or persons who, generations from now, will still be looked at and studied or commented on.
In no particular order:
September 11, 2001
That date will live in infamy in the history books. Over 2,000 people were murdered that day in the terror attacks that led to the destruction of the two World Trade Center towers, heavy damage to the Pentagon, and sense of numbness that took some months to work itself out.
The event also brought out the best of humankind as millions banded together in the initial days and months both to grieve and to work through the aftermath. I admit I channeled my inner cowboy wanting to get the mofos who planned it.
9/11 has also guided our country’s direction for at least this first decade and probably for many more decades to come.
The 2000 election was the first time that one political party, the Republicans, were able to use their control of a state government and the US Supreme Court to thwart the will of a majority of Americans and install their own guy into the White House. I hope it will be the last time. It’s very bad for democracy if one party is able to manipulate the media, state, and courts to get what they want outside of logic and reason.
George W Bush and the neocons
The installed President in 2000 was a bad influence on this country for the 8 years he held office. It wasn’t only the guy but those he had working for him, the neocons, like Vice President Dick Cheney who wanted to install their brand of “Pax Americana” on the world.
Breaking with the traditional post-world war II idea of diplomacy to solve problems in the world, Bush and his goons “shot first” and asked questions later. They believed that fighting terrorism involved imposing organized military power first rather than the usual criminal justice model of investigation and intelligence. They were mistaken that a terror group could be fought like a war between armies. Their failed policy led to a loss of prestige in the world, loss of men and women in our military, loss of scores of innocent civilian lives in areas we invaded and destroyed, and the failure to capture the major people who planned and funded the 9/11 attacks in the first place.
At home Bush and the neocons chipped away at our civil rights – always “blaming” 9/11 – by violating our privacy, detaining without charge hundreds if not thousands of Muslim aliens in this country, holding so-called enemy combatants outside the country to avoid basic constitutional protections for alleged criminals, facilitating the use of torture, and using fear mongering to keep us all in line.
Bush and the neocons, through their use of the Congress, changed laws that were meant to protect our economy and well being which helped bring about the economic crash of 2008. President Bush was alerted to the signs of collapse and basically did nothing until Wall Street started to implode on itself. Then he gave them a blank check with basically no strings attached.
Presidential election of 2008
This election was good because the system worked. The American electorate, in a stinging rebuke of the whole Bush Presidency, put the Democrats into a commanding majority in the House and Senate. It not only elected a Democrat as President but also the first African-American, Barrack Obama. The Republicans and the neocons tried their best tricks to steal another election but the public turned them away hard.
Although the jury is still out on this one, I feel a major political point of the first decade is the continued corruption of our government by the corporate lobbyist. These people give money to Congress people to buy votes that benefit their industries agenda. It was this corruption that helped bring on the economic collapse of 2008 by getting bought legislators to remove regulations installed during the Depression of the 1930’s to protect the economy from wild speculation. What happens? Wild speculation followed by collapse. *sigh*
The corruption led to Congress passing tax breaks and other laws that gave big pay days to their wealthy friends while screwing the middle class and damaging the lower income people time and time again
Corporatism has led the Democratic majority installed after the abuse of the Bush years to continue the failed economic polices and to be ineffectual in passing almost anything, like real health care reform, that challenges their masters in the board rooms around the country.
The influence of the corporation has also led to our major media outlets being held by only a few large companies and that has effected what passes for journalism today. Mainstream media protects and propagandizes for their corporate bosses, their affiliated companies, and bought legislators at the state and Federal levels.
I have a feeling, moving forward, that Corporatism will become more of an issue that could lead to a crises that an election can’t fix.
The Internet
It really came into its own during the first decade. The one area not entirely controlled by media conglomerates – yet – is the Internet. Millions of people bypassed the propaganda that passes for news on mainstream media and shared news and information directly through their computers.
The Internet has already knocked down print newspapers and severely hurt broadcast media. That is a sure sign that people want their news and information unfiltered. People also want facts and the truth not a press release that spins something according to some agenda.
Fake celebrities
The first decade of the 2000’s saw the rise of basically lazy, untalented people thinking they should be famous by participating in “reality” TV shows or for doing something stupid. When you can’t answer the question “Why should we care?” then the person is basically a fake celebrity. Historians might look on this like we do about those wacky stunts pulled in the middle 20th century like stuffing a phone booth, dance marathons, and stuffing a small car with people.
Hopefully in the coming decade, there are far more better times than bad ones.
Good luck to us all…
During the day I like to check out my hometown newspaper the Findlay Courier. This afternoon there was a breaking news item that Wilson’s Sandwich Shop might be closing down. For those not from the area Wilson’s is a Findlay institution having been around since the Great Depression. The unique part of the place is they make their own hamburger patties fresh every day and sell them as cheap as possible. It was one of the hamburger shops Dave Thomas visited when developing his Wendy’s chain of fast food restaurants.
Needless to say the closing if it happens would be sad indeed.
So I am reading the article posted online – the full article and more details will be published Wednesday in the print edition – and the writer brings out two points.
The restaurant has been having bad times due to the economy and lack of business. The manager is quoted as saying the business has lost money at least for the last five years.
The second point the article makes is:
Perhaps the last straw will be $2,100 in proposed fines it faces from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Employees have been exposed to several risks involving a hamburger patty molding machine, the federal agency reported: potential finger and hand pinches; electrical shock; and increased risk of electrocution.
Fenbert has referred the allegations to an attorney, and is “doing away with the (patty-making) machines,” he said. He said he cannot afford to take the equipment precautions and offer the training the safety administration would require.
“I am going to buy patties until we close down,” he said. “That is not the way we have done it for 50 years. We made our own hamburgers.”
I know Findlay so well that I can tell you the online comments and letters to the editor won’t talk about the down economy and lack of business it will rant about how the government is forcing them to close with the ridiculous regulations by OSHA as if that will really help them stay in business.
If they can’t afford to protect their employees from what looks like old equipment then how will that help them stay in business to get rid of the regulation. Could Wilson’s survive a lawsuit if an employee gets hurt because they can’t afford to update their equipment?
If it weren’t for OSHA and employee safety regulation we still might have children working coal mines for just one example.
*Update*
Since I wrote the text of this post earlier today, the situation at Wilson’s doesn’t seem as dire. The business is owned by 3 families and the manager, Mike Fenbert, represents only one third of the ownership. The other 2 families were not aware of the OSHA fine and told the Courier they plan to do what they can to keep the business open.
I also should note that OSHA just doesn’t pop-in for a visit at a work place. Usually they are responding to a complaint phoned in my a worker or investigating after an injury has been reported.
I still believe the public reaction will be to complain about the government rather than taking responsibility for the business trouble themselves – ie. lack of business and loss of income.