(Also: What Andy Said.)

NBC's current self-protocology with its late night schedule bothers me daily because I really like NBC's current late night schedule. I think Conan O'Brien's Tonight Show is the freshest thing that's happened to that franchise since Johnny Carson. I watch it nearly every night. The set is beautiful, Conan is significantly edgier than Leno ever was (though his comedy is too muted, apparently out of fear of offending a larger audience), and he works hard to sell every joke in the monologue. When soemthing falls flat, he does a little dance or something that reminds me of Carson's omnipresent Tea for Two soft-shoe when a joke fell flat.

The idea that this Tonight Show would end after seven months to return the franchise to the bitter, ossified, and unfunny Jay Leno is depressing beyond belief. Lots has been written about this elsewhere, but the basics are simple:

• In 2004, NBC got Conan and Leno to agree that Conan would become the host of The Tonight Show in 2009 and Leno would retire. Conan had been at 11:37 PM (I'm only using Central Time because that's where I live) for eleven years, and was a marketable property. NBC wanted to keep both Conan and Leno, and got everyone's buy-off for Leno to end his Tonight Show after 18 years.

• It's now abundantly clear that not only did Jay Leno have no intention of honoring this agreement, he didn't even think NBC had any intention of honoring it. Due largely to the normal antipathy towards Letterman and some NBC prime-time successes before the past two years, Leno had remained #1 in the 10:35 PM time slot. Despite having more money than God, he didn't want to quit working, and threatened openly to start a new late night show at ABC or FOX to compete with Conan after his Tonight Show ended.

• NBC, somehow trembling with fear at this prospect rather than openly laughing at it, decided to give five hours of prime time per week to Leno to keep him at NBC, saying ratings didn't matter to them as long as the show as profitable. As it turned out, ratings did matter to the NBC affiliates. Leno's crappy show generated crappy ratings. Most local news is interchangeable, so people who watch it tend to watch whatever channel they were watching at 9:00 PM. That's not Leno, so NBC affiliate local newscasts are tanking, with some seeing ratings as high as 40% or even 50% lower than a year ago.

  (NBC should have seen this coming when the Boston NBC affiliate publicly stated that it would not even carry Leno's show six months before it went on the air. NBC smoothed it over and failed to take a hint that even Sarah Palin couldn't have missed.)

• With NBC now agreeing to be purchased by Comcast (really?), affiliate objections could cause problems getting the merger approved. So NBC has wisely cancelled The Jay Leno Show. And yet, still stuck in 2003, they're terrified of Leno going to FOX (ABC says it's happy with its late night lineup) and want to keep him—so they want him back at 10:35 PM. They offered to let Conan continue to host something called "The Tonight Show" for an hour starting after Leno, at 11:05 PM (12:05 AM ET/PT, so not even technically "tonight" anymore), or they told Conan he could just leave and they'd give The Tonight Show back to Jay Leno.

• Conan, in a statement worthy of the ages, says that The Tonight Show is defined by its 10:35 PM timeslot, that moving it to "after another comedy program" would destroy it, and he has no interest in doing that. So now, NBC and O'Brien's camp are widely reported to be negotiating to end his contract (i.e., does NBC have to pay him the huge penalty fee for not keeping him as host of The Tonight Show, would it have been The Tonight Show at 11:05 any more than it would still be Today if it aired at 2 PM, etc.).

The simple truth, of course, is that Leno is the past for The Tonight Show, and Conan is the future. Conan's ratings are no worse than Leno's were shortly after Letterman started (and there was real competition for the first time), but in just one month of hosting Tonight, he dropped the median age of a Tonight Show viewer by ten years, from 55 to 45. The strongest demographic for the networks is 18-34; 18-49 is probably second. 55-year-old viewers are not worth nearly as much, and that's who Jay Leno draws.

How stupid must NBC be to believe that this aging and thinning Leno viewing herd will follow him to FOX, the network of Family Guy and Our Little Genius (if it ever gets on the air after its ethical problems)? FOX has no 9:00 PM network programming, and most FOX stations broadcast local news during that hour, and syndicated programs afterward. Who really believes that FOX stations currently filling the 10:00 PM hour with reruns of Family Guy, The Simpsons, South Park, and Punk'd will give up 100% local ad revenue for a split with a network show featuring a bitter, unfunny guy who attracts the John McCain crowd? (FOX is not Fox News; FOX runs programming that "Fox News" would bitterly criticize were it on any other network.)

Not to mention that for younger viewers, Leno is now irreparably damaged goods. They weren't watching his show before, and now his need for fealty is causing NBC to unceremoniously dump Conan, whom they were watching. Leno clearly looks like the evil manipulator in this because instead of taking the cancellation of his risky prime-time experiment with aplomb, he's openly threatening to change networks, demanding that NBC break the deal he agreed to, so he can ossify late night for however long he wants to stay there, which could be ten more years or could be ten more months.

Now Conan moving to FOX is a different matter entirely. He was a writer and producer on The Simpsons during some of its most-beloved seasons. His humor dovetails with FOX's normal kind of humor except Conan's involves fewer body fluids. 75% of Leno's "funniest" bits are him going out on the sidewalk and laughing at how stupid people are. Even when Letterman does similar bits, he's always disappointed when people don't know basic facts about the country or the world. Leno is positively tickled, thrilled at stupidity. He celebrates it, elevates the dumbest people he can find to instant celebrity status, openly hoping that they never become more than the next Heidi or Spencer. Even on American Idol, the bad singers aren't told that they should change nothing and deserve to be famous. They're told they can't sing. Did you ever see Leno tell someone to go learn something?

Leno has been on NBC for 19 years; Letterman has been on CBS for over 16 years after doing The Late Show at NBC for 11 years. It's extremely unlikely both of them will be hosting late night in 10 years, and somewhat unlikely that both will be hosting in 5 years. Or, God forbid, they could get hit by a bus; Letterman could have more heart problems; Leno could be eaten by his own chin, etc. In The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien, NBC has a legitimate long-term late night show that is ready to withstand all those travails.

And after spending about $20 million to get it started, NBC appears willing to flush this long-term late-night success down the crapper—after only seven months—in the completely asinine believe that Jay Leno would succeed at FOX even if he made the move. They're going to kick out the younger, hipper comedian with the younger audience and entirely expected ratings in favor of the damaged, bitter, unfunny guy who at best could hold on to a minor late night lead for a few more years.

This is why I don't watch new shows on NBC unless I have a really good reason to do so (like Joel McHale in Community). NBC fucks up everything if given the chance. If they're in first place, they can leave well enough alone. As soon as there's the slightest nick in the armor, though, they start doing "something" rather than doing anything smart. They spent a fortune on Studio 60 and didn't let it build an audience like they did The West Wing, and caved to mendacious critics who didn't like the picture of TV it presented. After one season of Heroes (which I refused to watch because of Studio 60, they tried to turn it into two series for a total of like 43 episodes for the second season, foiled only by the writer's strike and by giving the show to runners who nearly killed it. Their best new show of the past two years was Southland, so of course they killed it. They'd really like it back now that they have five hours of primetime to fill in just five weeks, but TNT picked it up, so they're—well, they're NBC.

The new comedy Parenthood looks funny, but it's going to be on NBC, so watching it will only bring heartbreak. I didn't pick up Chuck for similar reasons. I was considering joining it this season, given all the good reviews from friends, but then Operation Fellate Jay Leno started and ended any hope of that. It's ironic that for years, I didn't want to watch new NBC series because KFOR, the local affiliate, had the worst SD picture in OKC and would drop the NBC HD feed during the slightest breeze to fill the screen with ridiculous graphics. Now KFOR is broadcasting local news in HD (still can't record and play it back later, though, so syndicated shows, delayed network shows, and even repeats of their own newscasts are still in SD), has improved their SD picture to be at least on par with the other stations, and generally has an incredibly beautiful picture—and as soon as that happened, NBC fucked up the quality of the programming. A beautiful high-def picture of Jay Leno is the definition of polishing a turd.

(The funniest thing anyone has yet said about this was Conan's opening joke in Wednesday night's monologue:)

You know, I'm trying very hard to stay positive here. And I want to tell you something, this is honest: hosting The Tonight Show has been the fulfillment of a lifelong dream for me—and I just want to say to the kids out there watching: You can do anything you want in life.

Unless Jay Leno wants to do it, too.

Leno still has time to become a hero by walking away and not going to another network, but just doing the stand-up he apparently loves and being the "elder statesman" that Carson was and Leno has never shown the capacity to be. NBC can be the heroes by letting Leno walk even if he does go to FOX. And honestly, I would have loved The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien at 11:05 because then I could watch it after The Daily Show and The Colbert Report with no overlap, but I know that much of the audience doesn't work that way. I would not think badly of Conan at all if he changed his mind, especially since dozens of his staff also moved to Los Angeles with him and will now be stuck in the State of Ungovernability with mortgages and no jobs. That's also a hero move, but it does nothing to undamage NBC or Leno.

But if The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien ends, I'm following Conan wherever he goes. I will not watch Leno even if he has the second coming of Jesus Christ himself (though Leno probably thinks he can do that interview with just a mirror). I will not watch new NBC shows because I expect the network to fuck them up, and I don't need to make time in a busy day to watch something that's just going to get yanked away after a short run. In terms of brand equity and history and good feelings, NBC has always been my favorite network. If NBC loses Conan, they'll be somewhere around "The CW" to me.

I watch one show on "The CW" (Smallville) and have no desire to watch more. I'd still watch Community and 30 Rock (for now), but that's it for me and a Conan-free NBC. Conan is the best move in late night in 10 years. If they can't see that, there's truly no hope for anything they do.