Thursday, January 21, 2010

A 45 Million Dollar Joke

The Washington Post is running an article entitled, "NBC: Conan O'Brien Reaches $45M Exit Deal." The article reports, "Under the deal, which came seven months after O'Brien took the reins from Leno, O'Brien will get more than $33 million, NBC said. The rest will go to his staff in severance, the network said in an announcement on the 'Today' show."

Questions for Discussion:

1. Why do you think that Conan O'Brien refused to move the Tonight Show one half hour later? Do you think he made the right decision? Why or why not?

2. Do you think that Jay Leno acted unfairly when he agreed to move his show to after the local news programs? Why or why not? See if you can argue both sides of this question!

3. Mr. O'Brien reportedly has more than 200 people working for him? What kinds of jobs do you think that so many people have to do to put on a nightly comedy show? Do you think that it would be interesting to work for a comedy show as a staff member? Why or why not?

4. Imagine that you were a network executive trying to fill time slots from 10:00pm to midnight with the understanding that local news shows run from 11:00-11:30pm. What types of shows would you place in these time slots? Why? How would you balance the need to keep the cost of producing shows down while bringing in as much advertising revenue as possible?

Questions for Younger Children and Everyone Else:

1. What is your favorite television show? What do you like about this show?

2. Give an example of something that you think is fair. Give an example of something that you think is not fair. Why do you think that this is not fair?

3. Imagine that you were creating your own television show. What would it be about? Who would be the main character? Make it up!!

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