http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2010/01/nbc_reportedly_prepares_to_pay.html#more
What might hurt Leno somewhat more, frankly, is that he's been jaw-droppingly tin-eared in his public comments about the situation. Almost as soon as
the rumors started that his 10 PM show -- which he's made it clear he never really wanted -- was being canceled, he started doing jokes complaining about
the network's mistreatment of him, complaining that his show was being canceled.
Then came the announcement that he was getting his show at 11:35 back. In other words, he was getting exactly what he wanted, and was going to suffer absolutely no consequences for the failure of the ten o'clock show. Instead, he was going to get to push out Conan O'Brien, who had only been in the Tonight Show chair for seven months. The network had a choice between Jay and Conan, and it picked Jay. Jay won. Conan lost. Conan's family lost, Conan's staff lost, and Conan's fans lost. The risk of the Leno 10 p.m. experiment failing was, as it turned out, on Conan O'Brien the whole time, despite the fact that Conan O'Brien had nothing to do with whether it was successful. (Unlike, let's say, Jay Leno, who always seemed oddly indifferent about whether it failed or succeeded -- perhaps he knew something the rest of us didn't about what was going to happen if it flopped.)
And nevertheless, somehow, Jay Leno kept complaining. He made perhaps the most ill-advised joke I have ever heard in a late-night monologue, which went like this: "Conan said NBC has only gave him seven months to make his show work. When I heard that ... seven months! How did he get that deal? We only got four! Who's his agent? Get me that guy. I'll take seven!" This, of course, is a reference to the fact that Jay Leno was getting his old job back after four months, while Conan O'Brien was losing his job forever after seven months.
How nobody pointed out to Leno that this joke could potentially make him sound like a jerk -- when he otherwise has a pretty good argument that NBC moving around the schedule is not his fault -- I do not know.
It seems likely that it was Leno's continued complaints and sore-winner status that made him a much more appealing target for O'Brien, and for Letterman, and for Jimmy Kimmel. If Leno doesn't talk about how NBC stands for "Never Believe Your Contract" -- when he is the one getting exactly what he wants -- I don't think he turns into such a punching bag. If he settles down, if he's quiet, if he says publicly, "I feel awful for Conan and Conan's staff, and I wish none of this had ever happened," if he accepts gracefully that he's the winner and somebody else is the loser, and that maybe this is not the moment to go on and on about how hard it is to be Jay Leno, he doesn't hurt himself so badly.
If anything hurts Leno, it's not going to be the network politics. It's going to be the fact that this has uncovered what seems to be a massive
blind spot, where he's seen himself as put-upon by networks for so long that he doesn't know how to win gracefully. He's supposed to be the guy
who's in touch with the common man, but the common man understands, even if Jay Leno does not, that there is only one short end of the stick here in terms
of treatment by the network, and Conan O'Brien is getting it. It is time -- it is past time -- for Leno to stop complaining about finding himself in a
situation precisely identical to the one he wants.
There is more at the beginning but it is depressing since it argues Jay has a good chance of regaining his prior success.
