Late Night Wars

Ever since Jay Leno stepped down from the Tonight Show and was replaced by Conan O'Brien, there's been a power vacuum in the world of late night TV.  David Letterman has seen a bump in his ratings ever since Leno left and Conan is having a hard time keeping Leno's fans watching him nightly.  ABC has also a spike in their ratings for Nightline and some of it is due to Leno's departure.  Execs at NBC are hoping with the return to have Leno on a prime time slot prior to the Tonight Show will get things under control but I doubt it.  It's too much late night TV on one network.  They'll have s three show block of Leno, Conan and then followed by Jimmy Fallon.  The execs at CBS must be happy because they have quality programing on prime time and not everyone will want to see Leno yack it up.  I personally think Jay Leno is a hack and never watched the Tonight Show when he hosted it but I get it why people watched it.  His humor was bland and safe.  Never did anything edgy and booked the big guests.  He had a 5 share rating and made a ton of money for himself and everybody involved.  He loved his job but NBC thought they'd get rid of him within 5 years and that's when they signed Conan to that monster deal.  The 5 years passed by and Leno stayed on top but Conan slipped in his own time slot.  I don't think the people at NBC ever forecasted the current state when they made this deal.  I'm a huge fan of Conan O'Brien but I knew that he'd have a hard time crossing over to a mainstream audience and before that he was losing in the ratings to Craig Ferguson.  I've noticed that the execs at NBC are trying to water down Conan's show and it's lost some of it's spunk that the original show had.  Don't be surprised to see them can Conan if they bleeding doesn't stop and reinstate Leno back on the Tonight Show chair.  Show biz is barbarically brutal and even for a guy named Conan he's not safe from anybody.