Over on this side of the pond there are several late night 'chat' show hosts who earn much more money than Ross does and who provide even less entertainment. This is despite 'going out' late at night when most Americans are in bed or watching a dvd before going to bed.
Of course it doesn't bother them that they only get a few million viewers as they have such inflated egos that they'd perform at an AA meeting if they were paid enough.
There has been a lot of airtime taken up here lately as one of them, Jay Leno (the man who is paid so much he has probably the world's largest collection of luxury cars in private hands) decided to listen to his ego and get NBC to move him from The Tonight Show which he'd hosted for 17 years to a new show and a new slot at 10pm. Never mind that this is still an hour when lots of people are thinking about going to bed. Another (on even later) host was moved into his old slot on The Tonight Show and I dislike him so much that I can't even bring myself to type his name, Conan O'Brien.
This man is to entertainment what Hitler was to European tourism.
Moving on 7 months and Leno is dying on his feet on his new show. It, like him, stinks. He wants to go back to his old slot on The Tonight Show but in the battle of the egos, O'Brien isn't for moving. Of course this is just a ruse to get more money as even he knows he can only stall NBC but never beat them.
And what do you know...it's probably worked. NBC announced today a deal has been agreed where O'Brien is being paid $33m for quitting The Tonight Show after only 7 months and Leno will take over on March 1st. O'Brien, NBC says, will "be allowed to return to tv in 8 months."
It would be wonderful if no network wanted him but I'm sure there will be a slot for him somewhere. Maybe on The Shopping Channel ? Certainly not on The Comedy Channel although he himself must be having a laugh all the way to his bank.
His writers will no doubt put a spin on this so that his ego doesn't have to accept this as being a sacking. In the same way, Leno's writers will somehow spin things so that he didn't fail at 10pm but that the show just wasn't a suitable vehicle for his talents. His what now ?
There have been reports that Ross is being touted as a possible chat show host over here and you never know, the soon-to-be vacant 10pm NBC slot just might be dangled in front of HIS ego.
America, if you think your existing chat show hosts are crap, just wait till you get Ross.
With the staggering amounts of money being bandied around here, even if he only lasts a few shows, Ross might think he'd be financially set for life.
Sadly for us UK licence fee payers, we've done that for him already.
Did you just compare CoCo to Hitler, and The Tonight Show to The Holocaust? lol.
ReplyDeleteNot any more ;-) Hoped no one would read that before I changed it !
ReplyDeleteGood save! :-D
ReplyDeleteIf I had my way I would put the whole lot of them on a plane bound for Haiti where they would have to put in sixteen hour days -erecting tents, digging latrines and comforting orphans. Another rule would be that they'd have to keep their gobs shut.
ReplyDeleteVERIFICATION WORD: making
I liked Michael Parkinson. Just saying. And I bet he wasn't paid thirty three million dollars, either.
ReplyDeleteHa. Jonathan Ross? Who's he?
ReplyDeleteI refuse to recognise him. He is off my radar, and beneath my contempt.
Moving on the Jay Leno, I don't know what it is about the hosts of this type of show. I don't mind Leno (the visible portion, if you know what I mean - I didn't really know much about the ego until I read this), but nobody should be able to play the TV companies like this. Is he worth it? I doubt it. I think there are probably two hundred people out there who could do the shows just as well for half the cost. But maybe that's just me.