NBC Universal Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol lashed out at Conan O’Brien in The New York Times, saying the comedian himself is responsible for potentially losing his time slot, and now the comedian’s camp is striking back, reports Joe Adalian at The Wrap.
While officially no one in O’Brien’s camp is commenting, one insider told Adalian:
"This is the essence of NBC’s problems. Conan O’Brien is losing his job because he didn’t take the comedy notes of a 62-year-old sports producer."
When they aren’t slinging insults, Adalian writes, the two sides are continuing to hammer out severance packages for the staff of O’Brien’s show, who may be out of work for several months until the comedian is able to set up a new gig at another network.
–Elizabeth Jensen
dick ebersol was once the EP of saturday nite live. how did that go, Dick? oh, what about the whole jane pauley – deborah norville switcheroo when u were at news? oh, and what about the fact that you’re abt to lose $200mm on the olympics? criticism from ebersol should be taken as high praise …
ps. oh and by the way … do you really need to continue to self promoite on sunday nite football? i dont recall seeing the fox EP of sports’ name at the top of every one of their football games … CHEESY
Conan’s ratings may not have been up tp par, but Jay’s show is the show that was cancelled. Jay is a scumbag for letting NBC use him to fix their debacle instead of licking his wounds and walking away. Conan never demanded the Tonight show, he was appointed to it in one of the dummest moves ever by a network, now they’re throwing him under the bus because they screwed up! Bottom line, none of this should have ever happened, NBC should have left well enough alone, Jay on The Tonight Show, Conan on Late Night!
Dear TVWeek Editors,
Please don’t post snippets of, or links to, articles at sites that require pre-registration from visitors in order to see them. That’s what happened to me here when I tried to look at The Wrap’s full posting.
At minimum, your site’s visitors should be fore-warned about it…
Thanks,
Bram
Hi Bram. The problem appears to be that for a period of time on Friday, after we had posted this item, when one clicked on the link to The Wrap the article did not appear–instead a registration page came up. We try to avoid such links for our users, or, as you suggest, we usually warn them. Subsequently The Wrap has reinstated the link to go directly to the article. Thanks, Chuck