How's that working for ya, NBC?

The whole thing was about cutting costs. And since Jay, who was supposed to retire from "The Tonight Show" didn't actually want to retire, and the powers that be at NBC/Universal didn't want Jay to go to another network, but Conan, the new guy, was already scheduled to take over from Jay, what was NBC/Universal to do? Hey, the suits thought, what about this? Let's keep Jay and give him a new weeknight show at 10 PM! Hey, that'll be cheaper! Why pay for 5 dumb 10 PM dramas? Why pay for 5 sets of actors, writers, directors, producers, staff and crew? Jay's show is cheap. He'll save NBC/Universal a lot of money, and drive the ad rates up! Less money out, and mo money mo money MO money coming in for NBC/Universal! (When the suits get excited, they sound like the guys from "In Living Color.")

That was their plan, but we all know what happened. Jay's show tanked, which made the local news tank, which didn't help build an audience for Conan, the new guy. Hey, the suits thought, what about this? Let's move Jay to another new show! A half-hour show that starts at 11:35! And we'll just bump all the other shows back by a half-hour! Hey, that'll work! Jay will get his old time slot back and he won't tank anymore, and Conan gets Jay as a lead-in, and even if "The Tonight Show" technically starts tomorrow, and who cares about the guy after that? And mo money mo money MO money coming in again for NBC/Universal!

But Conan said no. And then last Friday, Conan left the building. And dig this: if you take the 30 million NBC/Universal dollars that Conan walked away with, and add the $12 million he got for his staff (a way- classy move of Conan's, by the way); and add the millions paid to Jay to stay at NBC/Universal and do the new 10 PM show; and add the millions more they had to pay Jay to do the new "oops-our-bad" 11:35 half-hour show; and the additional millions they probably forked over to Jay to return to his old "Tonight Show" hour-long gig; and then add millions more NBC/Universal dollars they're feverishly throwing at writer/producers to create 5 new hour-long dramas, and could you write and produce them like, yesterday?

If you added up all of those millions, it would have been cheaper for NBC/Universal to do the 5 damn hour-long dramas in the first place, and for NBC/Universal to hire actors, writers, directors, producers, staff and crew, and they could have kept thousands of people employed.

Fascinating and stupefying.

I've got to get in on this "fail upward" track.