One network's bonehead mistake is another network's discovered gem

We saw two similarly colossal blunders made in broadcasting over the past year, and both have now been righted.

The first blunder happened in December 2009, when Steve Czaban's radio show, wildly successful for 7 years, was canned by Fox Sports Radio. I won't even mention his replacement beceause he doesn't deserve the publicity obtained by being mentioned on a sports blog with 7 readers, but trust me, he's been predictably awful since replacing Czabe.

The second came in January 2010, when NBC yanked Conan O'Brien from the Tonight Show after just 8 months, in favor of former host and current has-been Jay Leno. ("Ehhhhh, Kato Kaelin in the news again...")

Fast forward to August. Conan is less than 3 months from beginning his new late night show with TBS. And this glorious announcement came yesterday: Steve Czaban is returning to the morning sports radio landscape, joining the Sporting News Radio network in September.

NBC's and Fox's losses are examples of how arrogant, clueless network executives can screw up something that didn't need changing. But their losses are TBS's and SNR's gains, simply doing the common sense thing and scooping up tremendous talent that should have never become available in the first place.

The good news for TBS and SNR is, these common sense moves will pay huge dividends for years to come...provided they too don't screw up a good thing.

Thanks for the laughs, Conan

I felt like I should throw in my final thoughts on the Conan-NBC-Leno triple threat match, so here they are. Conan's last show was fantastic, and his farewell speech was classy, interesting, and even inspiring. He really took the high road in this whole thing, and I'll certainly miss watching him...at least until he signs on with another network, which can't be far off. (I've heard it's 9 months, in his contract.)

Thanks for all the good times Conan, you're the best in the business.

And with this, I'm back on the "shoot" side again

This Conan clip was the first, at least that I've heard of, that was pulled from the air, by both NBC and Hulu. Thanks to the Huffington Post for having it.

As you read in my prior post, my main hang-up with the legitimacy of the NBC screwing Conan story was that they weren't censoring anything. Well, now they are, so I'm back to believing the feud is legit.

Favre/Leno revisited

I'll begin with a link today...Czabe's friend Skip Oliva does a great job of expanding my initial snap comparison of Jay Leno to Brett Favre.

Also today, after hearing from my good friend Andrew, I'm starting to lean towards thinking a lot of this feud, among Conan, Leno, and NBC, is planned. If I can go heavy on wrestling terms now - as after all, I do believe life imitates wrestling almost as much as it imitates Seinfeld, which is an awful lot - this whole thing could be a work. (Originally, I was 90% sure it was a shoot.)

In really thinking about it, who benefits the most from the fued? NBC. They're playing the heel here, yet they're in charge and making the most money off of the situation. Both shows' ratings are up since the controversy began. And with all the sniping from Conan and Leno, both at each other and at NBC, wouldn't NBC be able to silence them if they wanted to? Take them off the air completely, stop them from making any jokes at NBC's expense, or at the very least, have final edit of what jokes/skits make air? This thing is starting to smell.

Or maybe it started out as a shoot, and NBC is turning it into a work after the fact. At this point wouldn't that be their best move? Maybe they'll call the whole musical chairs thing off and keep Conan and Leno where they are. It takes more intelligence and guts to reverse-field on a terrible idea than to go through with it...and with the bump in ratings Conan and Leno have been experiencing since the controversy started, they could really be turning a negavite into a positive. Plus, NBC could pretend it was a work all along even if it wasn't, and not look so stupid.

I'm not convinced of any of this...I'm maybe 60% sure at best that it's all a work. But this thing could get interesting. Stay tuned!

Have you heard about this, have you seen this?

It has occurred to me that Jay Leno is the new Brett Favre: Gets catered to, can't make up his mind about retiring, doesn't know when it's time to step aside, and makes the situation uncomfortable for everyone involved. (One difference though, Brett Favre is the better comedian of the two.)

Stay strong, Conan.