Four months after forcing Conan O’Brien off the Tonight Show, Leno’s ratings have dropped below Conan’s. Not only does Leno have fewer viewers, his show also costs more to produce. $10 – $15 million more a year than Conan’s. Bwahahaha.
Leno’s higher salary — $30 million per year, compared to O’Brien’s $15 million — plus the cost of his bigger production staff was pushing the show into the red, according to insiders.
“It’s got the potential to be a huge embarrassment,” said the source.
NBC is about to be taken over in a $28 billion deal with cable giant Comcast.
“You can’t figure they’re happy about this,” the insider said.
Leno has at least two more years to go on his NBC deal.
But, as Leno himself joked at the height of the late-night mess last January, “NBC stands for ‘Never Believe your Contract.’”
Even though Leno beats rival David Letterman most weeks, ABC’s nightly newsmagazine show “Nightline” is now the top-rated show after 11:30pm.
Conan is a hundred times funnier than Leno and cost half as much. NBC in their infinite wisdom decided that something needed to be done about that. So they paid Conan millions of dollars to quit and signed back the less funny Jay Leno and now his ratings are even lower. “Ahh, job well done,” NBC execs said while wiping their asses with $100 bills.
