Sunday, January 31, 2010

Farewell, Conan

By now, you all probably know that Conan O'Brien has left The Tonight Show after a major controversy involving weeks of back-stabbing, statements, and apologies. When bad ratings for Jay Leno's show at 10 led NBC to move Leno back to a later slot and bump The Tonight Show into the wee hours of the next morning, O'Brien refused to make the move, resulting in Leno once again hosting The Tonight Show and leaving O'Brien with a multi-million-dollar payout, but no job.

A lot of people have weighed in on this one, and a lot of people have chosen sides, so I'm not going to do that. What I do want to do is ask: What are we actors to make of this? How does show A's bad ratings lead to show B getting shafted so show A can have its time slot? Shouldn't the show with the crummy ratings be the one to get the boot? In an industry that is so over-saturated, the networks pretty much have the actors by the short-and-curlies: you do what they want and co-operate, because unless you are the most amazing of the most amazing, you're replaceable. So how did the guy with bad ratings end up getting the other guy's job? Are there back-room deals to be made in television, too? Has politics infiltrated the entertainment industry?

I want to hear what you think.

Thanks for stopping by.

No comments:

Post a Comment