My heart has been aching since NBC confirmed what I had hoped wouldn’t be true: Conan O’Brien will no longer be hosting ‘The Tonight Show.’ I will dearly miss my auburn-haired Irish host and his bizarre antics. He stands out from other late-night hosts because he wholly embraces his quirkiness and provides a charming atmosphere to the show.

I can’t say I’m surprised; O’Brien has been gleefully slamming NBC since the network’s decision to push Jay Leno back to 11:35 p.m.

Michael Russnow, a commentator for The Huffington Post, does acknowledge that O’Brien still wasn’t on par with past ‘Tonight Show’ hosts like Johnny Carson and Steve Allen and could not compete with the suave 62-year-old David Letterman, who also had his own messy history with NBC.

‘Don’t forget almost all his predecessors had degrees of success as performers, whether as a standup comic, such as Letterman and Leno, or a TV host such as Johnny Carson and Steve Allen …’ Russnow said. ‘As an interviewer, he was not much better and couldn’t compare with the wit of Carson or the interspersing of humor and intelligent colloquies served up by David Letterman, equally at home with movie stars, scientists and presidential candidates.’

Still, I’m not surprised the network is canceling ‘The Jay Leno Show’ after the Winter Olympics. If NBC executives are so smart, they certainly underestimated the large fan base ‘Law & Order: SVU’ carried for the network. For many, 10 p.m. is the prime time when people are finally relaxing from a hard day’s work. To force them to end their night with Leno’s show is reflective that the network didn’t think the deal through when it was initially proposed. In an industry where money is more important than talent, the network has made a huge mistake in letting O’Brien leave.

Nevertheless, I don’t blame Leno, nor O’Brien. They are merely entertainers trying to do their job. Both were disadvantaged in their own rights, but it was NBC that truly put them both in hot water by making loyal viewers choose between which host they liked more.

Ashlie Daubert, a sophomore television, radio and film and history major, agrees that NBC poorly handled the entire situation with the late-night hosts. She said the network sent the wrong message by allowing Leno to go back to the old time with no repercussions.

‘He wanted to have this new opportunity, and it didn’t work out,’ Daubert said. ‘He’s not teaching anyone anything because everyone can see he’s just sneaking his way back in.’

The bitter battle has enraged fans. Over Winter Break, I was driving by the Universal Studio lot and saw tons of ‘Team O’Brien’ fans with signs, trying to rally up a crowd for the host. Leno has also received major backlash from viewers, along with other late-night hosts like Letterman and Jimmy Kimmel.

I cringed when Tom Brokaw appeared as O’Brien’s guest and delicately took a minute out of his time to reassure O’Brien that the ‘NBC family’ will always be there for him, no matter what happens. What an oxymoron Brokaw delivered: The ‘family’ members that had so little faith in O’Brien will still ‘be there’ for him, even though they were the ones who brought him to his demise.

Nevertheless, we also have contributed to this mess. For those sporting homemade ‘I’m with CoCo’ T-shirts and who have consistently watched his show since it first debuted seven months ago, I applaud you. Your dedication and tenacity is well deserved. However, the rest of us most likely hopped onto the bandwagon later on. Many only began to watch the show when it was made clear that O’Brien was definitely leaving. Where were we when his ratings were down? I know I was secretly hoping that O’Brien’s slump was only temporary.

Since Thursday’s announcement, O’Brien has taken his final bow, even making light of the situation by putting ‘The Tonight Show’ on Craigslist. It’s bittersweet knowing that O’Brien, who hosted what he considers ‘the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting,’ will be leaving NBC.

However, I truly hope O’Brien moves onto bigger and better things. He has the talent, intelligence and compassion for the brutal industry, and even now, he’s gained a loyal fan base that wants to see him succeed and show NBC just how well he can do without the peacock network.

Angela Hu is a sophomore magazine journalism and English and textual studies major. Her columns appear weekly, and she can be reached at ajhu01@syr.edu.

Published on January 23, 2010 at 12:00 pm