Posted in: NBC, TBS, TV | Tagged: conan o'brien, Jeff Ross, late night, nbc, TBS

How College Students Helped Save Conan O'Brien, "Late Night"

Conan O'Brien & producer Jeff Ross on O'Brien's "Late Night" coming close to being canceled and how college students helped make the save.

The late-night scene was dominated on NBC with Johnny Carson's Tonight Show and David Letterman's Late Night throughout most of the 80s and early 90s. When Carson announced his retirement in 1992, naturally, all eyes were on Letterman taking over, but NBC ultimately chose fellow comedian Jay Leno, leaving Letterman to take his talents to CBS to host The Late Show. Filling the void on Late Night would be a daunting challenge as Conan O'Brien, who was predominantly known for his writing stints on The Simpsons and Saturday Night Live without any prior major screen presence, would take the job. From the early years, no one could have predicted O'Brien's run would have lasted through 16 years to 2009, as chronicled in Vanity Fair's oral history that includes O'Brien, executive producer Lorne Michaels, Letterman, head writer Robert Smigel, actress Lisa Kudrow, and producer Jeff Ross.

The first year for O'Brien's was particularly rough, with NBC potentially tapping Greg Kinnear to host before NBC executive Rick Ludwin convinced the network to give him another year. "I didn't know what was happening. And then it dawned on me. Colleges let out. So college students started to come," said O'Brien. Ross added, "People showed up knowing bits. It made us feel like we were onto something. I don't think the network noticed it, but we noticed it." After getting chewed out by NBC's Don Ohlmeyer, the same one who fired Norm Macdonald from SNL for regularly eviscerating O.J. Simpson during his murder trial nearly three years after the trial was over in 1998, chewed O'Brien and Ross out for not meeting his expectations before finding out Late Night was becoming a hit with the college crowd which includes his son at Boston College at the time. "He really didn't like us in the beginning. Conan and I were like, 'Ugh. I can't believe we're still having to deal with this.' And he sat us down, and he said, 'Guys, I have to apologize. I was wrong,'" Ross recalled.

Despite O'Brien's loyalty and subsequent promotion to the Tonight Show in 2009, the Jeff Zucker-led NBC looked to demote him after Leno's failed prime-time lead-in series was failing in the ratings and tried to give him back his 11:30 p.m. slot, which was reserved for The Tonight Show. As the network still controlled both Leno & O'Brien's contracts, the latter balked at being pushed to midnight as his program was regularly being beaten by Letterman's Late Show in the ratings. Ironically, NBC's dirty laundry between the three became fodder across the board for all the major late-night personalities, including Letterman, ABC's Jimmy Kimmel, and especially O'Brien as the situation played itself out. Even then-Late Night host Jimmy Fallon and then-Late Late Show host Craig Ferguson got in on the fun along with Leno's awkward milquetoast commentary, even getting savagely roasted by Kimmel in their crossover. After NBC bought O'Brien's contract out, Leno returned to host The Tonight Show, and O'Brien spent his remaining late-night days on his self-titled program on TBS through 2021. You can check out the rest of the Vanity Fair feature here.

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