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Ebersol stands by ‘astounding failure’ critique of Conan

Dick Ebersol laughed when he spied an issue of The Hollywood Reporter from 2011. The magazine took issue with his critique of late-night host Conan O’Brien as an “astounding failure.” The magazine said Ebersol was “too harsh” and described the moment as one of his career “flops.”

Ebersol stands by his critique of Conan O'Brien.
Photo by: GETTY IMAGES
“I still believe he was an astounding failure,” Ebersol said. “I thought both he and David [Letterman] were guys who couldn’t beat Jay [Leno] in a fair fight, a ratings fight, and who used that period of time to paint him with a brush that was not at all accurate and incredibly wrong. He’s a generous, decent, decent guy, and Dave couldn’t beat him head-to-head for years and years and years and years — 20 years. Conan was given ‘The Tonight Show,’ and within four months, it had blown the enormous ratings advantage that NBC had for years.

“When NBC offered [Conan] a very great solution, which was since Jay’s [new] show did not work in prime time — which had been NBC’s idea, not Jay’s — NBC said, ‘Let Jay have the first half-hour, from 11:30 to 12, and ‘The Tonight Show’ would be on from 12-1. Conan turned it down, which obviously was a big mistake. He’s still on TBS years later with an audience that you need a magnifying glass to see.”

So what does Ebersol think of other late-night hosts?

“Jimmy [Fallon]’s fantastic. I think [Stephen] Colbert will be great. I think the idea of losing [Jon] Stewart as a nightly host is almost too much to bear. It’s such brilliant, brilliant comedy night after night after night. I think he’d be better running our government than the government he has so much fun making fun of every night. I’m wildly impressed by him.”

— John Ourand

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