Oprah Winfrey flew to Los Angeles to chat with Jay Leno about the NBC late night programming drama. In this clip Oprah asks Jay if he's talked to Conan yet, and Jay says he probably will talk to him, after things have settled down a bit. Oprah has asked
Conan to appear on the same show, but so far we haven't heard whether Conan will appear. Take a look:
CNN reports that in the interview, Jay talks about how the whole mess started. He says Conan was not treated well, but he says that he wasn't either. He was at the top of his game with the highest ratings in his time slot when NBC told him they were replacing him with Conan. He was shocked.
Leno said he was no stranger to the harsh reality of show business, as during his long tenure at NBC, he's also felt the brunt of network decisions.
The situation was put into motion five years ago, Leno told Winfrey, when NBC came to him and said that they wanted O'Brien to take over on "Tonight" in 2009, and Leno would have to leave.
"I was in my office, and one of the executives came and said, 'Listen, Conan's getting offers from other networks, we don't want to lose him, we want to give him the show, and we're asking you to leave,' " Leno said. "It broke my heart. I was devastated. This is the job that I always wanted, and it was the only job that ever mattered in [show business] to me."
But Leno agreed to the deal, and he and O'Brien remained friends, talking often through the subsequent years. Leno admitted to Winfrey that he told a "little white lie" on television when he said he planned to retire, because actually, he thought he would move his show to another network.
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Winfrey told Leno that she wanted to do the interview because she was so surprised about the backlash.
"I'm really surprised so many people are against you. People don't understand the way television works," she told Leno. "I can understand people thinking you were selfish if you owned the show and controlled the show. It's surprising to me that people thought you stole the show when it wasn't your show to steal. It's owned by NBC."
Leno agreed, adding that he had no intention to own "Tonight."
Nonetheless, he said, "I did feel bad for Conan, it wasn't fair. But TV is unfair. It was unfair to me. I didn't cause this, it was the ratings."
Jay said at the time that he didn't mind leaving his show, but we never believed it. Who doesn't mind being fired when they are making millions of dollars for their bosses with top ratings? NBC mishandled the situation from the get-go.
