Though he may be the the butt of many an industry joke these days, Jay Leno isn’t letting it bother him and continues to look to the future of his show – whenever that will be.
Truth is, The Jay Leno Show isn’t doing any worse or better than his previous late night gig, yet with the cancellation of primetime shows to make room for him, he has received A LOT of negative press for it.
So what if he returned to 11:30? Would he even want to?
The answer, we have learned, may have Conan O’Brien suffering some sleepless nights.
News that NBC is seeking new ownership is nothing new, but news that they might change Jay’s show hour is. In a recent interview, Jay was asked about this change and how he felt about it:
“There’s a big potential ownership change coming to your company.
[Laughs] There’s an ownership change here every six months. ├óΓé¼┼ôOh, you’re the new programming guy, good to see you! OK, thank you.├óΓé¼┬¥ Then the phone rings, ├óΓé¼┼ôHey Jay, I want you to meet the new guy. OK, good to see you!├óΓé¼┬¥ I’ve been through nine of them!
If someone [from new ownership] comes in tomorrow and puts you back at 11:35, are you thrilled?
Oh, I don’t know. Are you married? Whatever you want, honey.
You know I don’t believe a word you are saying, right?
I’m not having a bad time at 10 o’clock now. I look at this as a job, and now I’m faced with a challenge, and it’s a challenge I find difficult but interesting. I find that when I go to Vegas, whereas before I might not sell out, all of a sudden it’s sold out. I seem to be doing better in terms of public appearances. I am reaching a wider audience. Whether that translates to television just yet, I don’t know. But I see a difference.
Now why is that, because I’m in the paper every day? I don’t know. Because I’m on earlier? I’m actually doing well; this is almost the best year for personal appearances since I started. So there is no negativity there.
Do you want to go back to 11:35?
If it were offered to me, would I take it? If that’s what they wanted to do, sure. That would be fine if they wanted to.
Would you rather do that than this?
I don’t know├óΓé¼┬ª.Would I take it? I guess. But it’s not my decision to make; it’s really not. I don’t know. Something makes me think we might be OK here for a while. It depends how long you’re here; by that time I could be 61-62, I don’t know. Personally, I think Conan is doing fine. He’s beating Dave in the demo, maybe not in the popular one right now because Dave has a lot of other things going that have people watching for whatever reason, so I think that’s not really a fair thing. It’s a little too early to tell.”
Inneresting.
Guess we’ll have to see what the new owners want, but whichever way this goes, we predict NBC won’t be letting go of Leno anytime soon.
Would U rather see Jay return to late-night or stay put at the 10 o’clock hour?
[Image via WENN.]
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